


Dedicate Your Hearts, Plus Ultra

by BattleAngel



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead is So Done, BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Badass Eren Yeager, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Because honestly, Blood and Gore, Chaotic Midoriya Izuku, Character's Name Spelled as Jaeger, Codependency, Conditioning, Dadzawa - An Aizawa Shota Zine, Dimension Travel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, I'll add to tags as I go, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Let Midoriya Izuku Swear, Manipulative Midoriya Izuku, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Prostitution, Midoriya Izuku & Shinsou Hitoshi Friendship, Midoriya Izuku Has One for All Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Midoriya Izuku's Hair Is Fluffy Because It's Full Of Secrets, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Eren Yeager, Protective Shinsou Hitoshi, Scary Midoriya Izuku, Shinsou Hitoshi Replaces Mineta Minoru, Shinsou Hitoshi is in Class 1-A, Smart Midoriya Izuku, Swearing, Tattoos, Temporary Amnesia, Titan Shifter Eren Yeager, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, class 1-a is appropriately terrified, compared to deku he's kind of a saint, eren protection squad, except he likes knives instead of guns, he and eren bond over both having superpowers, midoriya's like the winter soldier, midoriya's very confused, my poor bois are gonna need so much therapy, no beta we die like deku's innocence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:21:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BattleAngel/pseuds/BattleAngel
Summary: "The first time Captain Levi tells Deku that his cleaning’s “not horrible,” Deku cries, because this is the highest praise any soldier can ever be given in the Scouting Regiment. The others clap enthusiastically as he sobs into Petra’s shoulder."At USJ, Midoriya Izuku, instead of landing in the Flood Zone, is dropped into the world of Attack on Titan, promptly smashing his head on a rock and losing all his memories. Shiganshina has just fallen, and he wakes up on a refugee boat heading to Trost with no idea who he is or how he got there.As memories slowly start to come back to him, the newly-minted Deku, a valued member of Special Operations Squad Levi, finds himself being dragged into helping keep Eren, his fellow (quirked?) buddy from being executed by their totalitarian government. And then they're all at war.He didn't really sign up for this.When he returns to his homeworld, he's... different. Sharper, not the sniveling little kid he was when he left. No one knows where he's been, and he's not telling. All he knows is that if he's going down, he's dragging the League with him.
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Eren Yeager, Midoriya Izuku/Eren Yeager
Comments: 210
Kudos: 596
Collections: Attack On Titan, Bnha Bookclub Discord Recs, Boku No Hero Academia, samiches favs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> teen for swearing (cause Deku learned to speak the language in the criminal underworld like, what did y'all expect) and gore/violence (because this is AoT and it's always a given). I'm planning to continue this, but I also have classes and a marvel post-infinity work to keep up with, so we'll see I guess.
> 
> I messed around with the timeline a bit so that when Deku returns to the BNHA he won't be, like, mid-20s, so I pretended that he skipped a grade or whatever and entered UA at 13 and fast-tracked him through the training camp. He's 16 for the battle of Trost.
> 
> He is gonna go back to the BNHA universe with all his new skills/morals, I just haven't really decided when in the timeline he'll leave AoT, but there will probably be manga spoilers eventually.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy my contribution to the fandoms.

> _“My job is to scatter you all, to be tortured and slain,” is the last thing Izuku hears. He’s freaking out. He's only thirteen! He doesn't want to die!_
> 
> _Izuku sees his classmates’ panicked faces, and registers their desperate screaming. Then a wall of purple smog engulfs him, and he feels nothing._

* * *

He wakes up to a gentle rocking motion and low, mourning murmurs. He tries to sit up, but winces and stops, clutching his aching head. He pulls his hand away and it’s bloody. _Not good._ Laying back against the wooden surface he’s been propped up on, he looks around. Unfamiliar people are huddled around him, and in the distance he can hear screaming. His eyes flick around, taking in the drawn faces, the silent tears, and the blood-red sky. He’s on a… boat? Barge? Crammed with dirty, bloody people packed together like sardines. 

He is confused.

This is a bit of a perplexing situation, and he has no idea where he is. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not quite certain _who_ he is.

That seems like the more pressing matter to work out, at the moment.

* * *

They’re getting off the boat, backs bent and cowering. He sees that as they get off, they make sounds at a man in a light brown jacket when he asks them a question. The sounds are unfamiliar, and aren’t how he feels they’re supposed to be, but after a minute of listening and slowly getting further up the line, he thinks he’s worked out that the man must be asking for a… _name_. 

Of course, it comes out in an odd way he doesn’t feel fits, but he does realize that he will have to give this man a… _name_ … that fits himself.

He vaguely pulls at his blood-matted green hair and lists sideways for a moment as he considers what his name might be.

He knows he _has_ one of course, because he must have one if he wants to get off the boat. And he’s not quite sure why, but the stench of _blood-piss-fear-MOURNING_ that permeates the boat turns his stomach in dangerous ways. 

As the line moves, he tries to shape a couple of the names he’s heard so far from the others, to see if they might be his also, but as he tugs his green _(green?)_ hair he thinks slowly that none of them really fit him at all.

This is slightly worrisome. He needs to give the man a name if he wants to get off the boat. And suddenly he’s in front of the man, and the man looks down on him with a raised brow and asks-

“Wie ist dein Name?”

And the word that falls out of his mouth feels unfamiliar and wistful at the same time, and the man blinks then shrugs and makes marks on his _(paper?)_ thing and waves him forward. He blinks, and tugs his hair nervously. 

_What the hell is a ‘Deku’, anyways?_

* * *

Deku is a bit disenchanted with this whole “join the military” business. Because of course they offer much better food and accommodations than the Trostian red-light district did, he hadn’t thought that there would be so much… _yelling._ Even his night job in the red-light isn’t quite this vocal, and that’s saying something.

Deku got off the boat into an unfamiliar world a year and a half ago, and did his best to get a handle on this whole ‘completely helpless with what’s going on around him’ business. And when some of the Garrison came round a week after what everyone was calling the ‘Fall’, hauling off anyone they could for conscription, Deku was passed over because they assumed he was simple. 

Really, he was just very confused. 

He ends up with the Trostian mafia completely by accident because, really, his luck is just _that good_. Apparently his big green doe-eyes are the most adorably innocent thing on this side of Rose, which makes him an excellent interrogator and occasional assassin. And when the boss has no one he needs answers out of and no one he wants dead, Deku meanders over to the red-light brothel where he puts his big green eyes and chapped lips to other uses and makes enough coin for some dinner tomorrow. 

It’s nice, really. The routine of it. 

But of course, some jackass blabbed that he wasn’t simple, but actually pretty damn smart with a shaky grip on the language, and so the Garrison dragged him _here._ To the _military._

Fuck, he is not good with authority.

* * *

So apparently he’s a bit of a natural at this whole ODM racket, which is nice. The written classes? The _reading in general?_ Not so much. Back in Trost he didn’t have to worry about being able to read or write much, so he sorta-maybe just copies off of the people who can. There are two others in his corp who’re from the less-savory flavor of Rose, basically illiterate just like he is.

The three of them talk sometimes. It’s nice.

Everyone is simultaneously horrified and fascinated when they find out his hometown is listed as Shiganshina, because apparently the boat he woke up on was coming from Shiganshina after the Titans broke through. 

He wonders who he was before the boat. Deku thinks he must have hit his head, because he remembers the blood matted in his green hair. He’s heard stories of people who hit their head and went a little funny afterward.

Deku, late at night, stares up at the ceiling and wonders if he had a family. If this hypothetical family is either dead in a Titan’s stomach or was on the boat with him and he just… never knew it. He feels horribly guilty because if his family was devoured and he lived, then he should have carried his memories of them further, should have carried them onward. But he can’t because he’s pretty sure that any family that his body might have had isn’t really his anyway.

He doesn’t even know his real _name._

Sometimes, his morbidity considers that he, Deku, killed whoever he was before the boat and took his place, sliding roughly into a meat sack that wasn’t his own.

  
But those are very late-night thoughts.

* * *

Deku discovers that he is inexplicably, almost inhumanly stronger and faster than the other cadets. He never really noticed before because he was never really compared to the others around him, but in a military training camp it is becoming more and more obvious how far he physically outstrips them. His corp is made up almost exclusively (minus himself and the other two) of middle-upper class citizens who have their eyes set on the Military Police, on the cushy job benefits of living and working in the Interior. They’re upper-crust in Rose, sure, but the safety of two walls is apparently significantly more attractive than just the one and the “urchins” that the refugees apparently are. 

Deku gets a pass because of how “sweet” and “cute” and “innocent” he apparently looks, and he thinks it ironic and an unintentional tip of the hat to his red-light skills, though he doesn’t sleep with any of them. It’s the _military,_ for Sina’s sake, he’s not about to throw around his casual-sex skills _here._

* * *

So, he had casual sex with one of the other two unfourtunates. Their name is Lisse. Deku’s not quite sure how he feels about this new development. He has assured Lisse that he has no interest in them romantically and tells them with a wink to come find him if they’re feeling pent-up again, perhaps in exchange for his cleaning duties for a week. Lisse tells him that drives a hard bargain, but that they would not mind continuing this conversation at a later date.

Deku thinks he may have made a friend.

* * *

There’s a training accident with the ODM gear. _Deku could have stopped it, could have-_

Lisse was caught in one of those idiotic MP-wannabe bastards’ fancy maneuvers and shredded by the cables. 

They had to take off their arm. They’re sending them home.

They have no home. 

Deku painstakingly copies out the name of the Trostian brothel he sometimes works at and presses the paper into their remaining hand, whispering that the workers there were treated very well and for them to say Deku sent them. He said that it wasn’t a noble career path but it put coin in hands.

Hand.

They smile sharply, and kiss him on the cheek. “Beat those rich kids into the ground for me, Deku,” they say. “And then give the Titans hell.”

He grins back, devilish with only a hint of wobble to betray his despair. “Course, Lisse.” he says shakily. “Who do you take me for?”

They laugh.

And then Lisse is gone.

* * *

Deku graduates early, fast-tracking through a two-year program and graduating at sixteen, top of his class.

He doesn’t want a cushy job with the MPs, though. And he doesn’t want to be a petty patrolman with the Garrison. 

That year, the top of the class registers for the Scouting Regiment, whose motto is to “dedicate your hearts to go _beyond_ -”

_(Well, plus ultra, right?)_

* * *

The Scouting Regiment is… _weird._ And full of crazy people who do odd things.

Deku loves it. 

His first expedition goes well, and he solo-kills five Titans and saves the life of one of his comrades. When they return, he is assigned to Squad Levi and is _ecstatic_ . He’ll grudgingly admit that he has a bit of a hero-worship thing for Squad Levi. They’re just so… so _above it all._

But then, of course, his first day with them and his worship is _completely_ annihilated, because these bastards aren’t above a damn thing, but he loves them better for it. Two or three relatively successful expeditions later and he’s saved their lives and they’ve saved his so many times that their squad is just one big life debt.

The first time Captain Levi tells Deku that his cleaning’s “not horrible,” Deku cries, because this is the highest praise any soldier can ever be given in the Scouting Regiment. The others clap enthusiastically as he sobs into Petra’s shoulder.

Then an expedition almost goes very, very wrong, and Deku does something very, very strange.

Has this green lightning business always been here?

* * *

So, he’s got some freaky-ass strength enhancement shit. And there’s green lightning involved if he really _really_ busts his ass with it. 

His squad was surrounded, and Gunther was out of gas, Petra had a broken arm, Oulo was concussed, Eld broke his ankle, and Levi’s gear was shot. They were surrounded, eight fifteen-meters and an abnormal who was bouncing off trees.

So Deku did what Deku does best.

He went _goddamn mother-fucking plus ultra._

* * *

Levi agreed that they would tell absolutely zero people about what happened in what was henceforth known as The Plus Ultra Incident. Not Hanji, not Erwin, and certainly not the government. 

Deku practiced in seclusion, and Squad Levi helped. If he ever wanted to master this power, he would need to work for it.

And he couldn’t master _shit_ if he was locked up in some science basement waiting to be dissected.

* * *

Once Squad Levi is healed up and ready to be back in the game, Deku immediately breaks four fingers on his dominant hand in the most mundane way possible, but assures the rest of his squad (by which he means the Captain, who is a worrywart at heart) that he’ll be fine, resting up at the Trost headquarters and sitting out this expedition. He knows how eager they are to get out of the walls, so he tells them to go, and that he’ll just wait this one out. 

He knows Squad Levi doesn’t like leaving people behind, but he doesn’t want to drag them down.

So he tells them to go.

And the next day, the Colossal appears, just like it did five years ago. He hears the screaming, sees the rubble of a hole being kicked through the wall, and his gear’s already on, broken fingers be damned.

* * *

It’s a nightmare out there, the advance guards are already down, he’s got Cadets being slaughtered, the evacuation is slow as _shit, what the hell is going on back there,_ and people are seeing his Scouting cloak and lighting up like they’re already saved and he _can’t save them_ . He doesn’t _know_ urban combat like he knows the forests and the plains, he’s _not enough,_ he’s taking them down like they’re made of cardboard but they just _keep coming,_ and _all he can hear is teeth snapping closed and the crunch of bone, the slow swallow of limp flesh-_

He kills some more to make himself feel better, but abruptly realizes that he doesn’t feel much better. There are cadets, _kids really, only a year younger than me-_ screaming and dying around him, and the only thing he can do is slaughter more Titans in their name. 

Then he thinks to himself, _hey, wait a minute, who’s the ranking officer here? Trost is- is lost, (don’t think about it, don’t think about it-) we all know that, so who’s going to call retreat? What’s going on with the evacuation?_ So he wheels around and starts carving a path toward where civilians are supposed to be funneling through, being mindful of his gas usage.

And when he gets in sight of the gate and sees a rich bastard yammering on about his cart, blocking the path and damming up the people, all he sees is _red._

* * *

Mikasa isn’t quite certain what just happened, but she was about to give the merchant hell about what he was doing and a green blur just did it for her, delivering the most solid verbal smackdown she’s ever heard. And she’s certainly never seen a merchant move as fast as that one did to get something done. 

Next thing she knows, there’s no more people, and the evacuation is complete. The green soldier turns to her, and she sees the Wings of Freedom on his cloak, but before she can ask he answers.

“Scouts aren’t here. I’m technically supposed to be on medical leave, but I wasn’t about to sit on my ass while the fucking Wall was being kicked in. Come on, cadet, we’ve gotta sound the retreat,” he says roughly, and she nods and salutes. He grins, a sharp, broken thing, and zips away. Mikasa follows close behind, and together they head for the carnage.

Every group they pass the Scout screams, “ _Retreat, retreat! Back over the Wall, soldiers! Retreat!”_ and every group near about sobs in relief. Or is already sobbing.

But when they reach the biggest group left, what Mikasa sees is the 104th, the Scout slows, and slams down feet-first on the rooftops beside them. 

“C’mon, we gotta go,” he says. “Job’s not done. What’s the holdup?” and when he hears that they’re near about out of gas, certainly without enough to get over the Wall, he nods. “Yeah, this’s a shitty situation, Cadets. And I can see that you’ve lost comrades. But you gotta listen to me,” he says, and takes a step forward, green eyes blazing. “ _Job’s not done._ We’re gonna head for HQ to resupply, and I’m gonna help you get there. I know all you wanna do right now is mourn your people, but this isn’t the time.” his eyes soften a little. “You’re gonna honor their sacrifices by living to the next day, and the next, and you’re gonna carry them forward with you. There’ll be a time for crying, when we’re set to see another sunrise. But if we die here, if we _give up_ here, that means that they die for _nothing._ Do you understand, Cadets? I need you to pick yourselves up and hold your blades high for the comrades who can’t.” 

He glares, and steps forward again. The 104th’s backs straighten, and eyes harden.

“ _You got that, soldiers?!_ ” he yells.

“YES, SIR!” they scream back together. The Scout grins manically. 

“Get straight to HQ, soldiers, and don’t stop for nothing! Your objective is to _keep moving forwards_ , do you understand me?!”

“YES, SIR!”

“Don't worry about killing Titans, I’ve got that bit! You all are gonna use your gas smart and dodge, and you’re gonna _KEEP MOVING FORWARD!_ ”

“ _YES, SIR!_ ”

“ _FORWARD!”_

And she can’t see Eren, and Armin doesn’t look too good, and there aren’t as many cadets here as those that arrived, but by Sina, Mikasa’s going forward.

* * *

Deku is _exhausted_ , and his hand fucking hurts like _hell,_ and he’s nearbout out of gas, but he’s not about to leave these cadets behind. So he guards the flanks, and as the girl with the red scarf and a blond kid who looks kinda horsey blaze the path towards HQ, Deku slices down any Titans coming near these kids. And _damn it,_ scarf girl’s gas hisses out and she tumbles, but when the group starts to flag he yells- 

“ _Keep moving, soldiers, I’ve got her! Keep moving!”_ and they speed up again. He watches as they pass him. Sina, he hopes they make it. He drops down by scarf girl and holds a hand out to lift her up off her ass.

“Job’s not done, soldier.” he says. “We’re gonna loot some corpses for gas and then we’re gonna get to HQ. On your feet,” and he watches as she takes his hand and rolls her shoulders.

“Yes, sir,” she says, tone dead. He scans the street, and spots a pile of discarded gear in a crater where a body laid. 

“I can see you’re missing someone, soldier,” Deku says as he picks his way over to the gear. “And that you’re ready to lay down. But if you die here than your someone dies, _really_ dies, with you. We’re gonna keep moving, soldier. You ready?” 

Her back straightens a little. “Yes, sir,” she replies, firmer this time, and reaches down with him to replace the gas.

“A third in these tanks,” he says. “That’ll be enough for us to kill us a couple bastards on our way to the others. Job’s not done yet. Let’s fly,” and he’s ready to zip up when a ten-meter comes bumbling around a corner. “Hey, lookie here, first customer. You ready, soldier?” and she nods, fingers tightening around her blade grips. 

But before either of them can move, a fifteen-meter comes hurtling around a corner to sock the ten-meter in the face, throwing it back. It then processes to stomp on its neck like it’s squishing a bug, then roars, loud and deafening. Then starts splashing around in the ten-meter’s innards, spreading them over the road like icing on a cake.

“Well, shit,” Deku remarks. “That’s certainly something you don’t see every day. C’mon, soldier. We’ll leave that friendly little fucker to do its good work. We’ve got your friends to go after.”

Scarf girl looks a little freaked out, both by the fifteen-meter abnormal and Deku’s blasé response to it. But she rallies, nods again, and they speed off toward HQ.

* * *

Mikasa’s kind of freaking out, but she decides to ignore what just happened in favour of cutting down Titans on her way to the 104th. The (probably insane) Scout beside her is focused, cutting a path toward the hive like a man on a mission. His green hair seems to have escaped its low ponytail, and is whipping around his face in a way that has to be annoying, but he doesn’t even blink at it. 

They crash through the windows simultaneously, glass shattering across the wood floor. The others from the 104th look up at them, startled, then relieved. 

“Report,” the Scout says. “What’s the situation?”

And Armin explains what’s going on in the storeroom and his plan for getting past it.

“Excellent, one problem.” the Scout says. “We still gotta worry about the ones outside clawing their way in. So scarf girl- my bad,” he says, turning to her. “what’s your name, doll?”

“...Mikasa,” she says blankly.

“-Mikasa here and I will need to be outside thinning the herd. So you’re gonna need two extra blade-wielders-”

And a deafening roar sounds outside, and the Scout rushes to a shattered window to look outside.

“Ah, hell yeah!” he cheers. “Mikasa, remember that abnormal who was beating Titan ass earlier? Yeah, he’s back. So y’all only need one extra blade-wielder. I’m gonna help out our Berserker here.” and, with a jaunty two-finger salute, he jumps out the window in a blur of motion and starts slicing down the Titans scrabbling on the walls.

Everyone’s sort of stunned for a moment, but Armin kicks them into gear and they get ready to storm supply.

* * *

Deku’s kinda having fun, honestly. The Berserker doesn’t seem interested in eating him, which is nice, and there’s lots of Titans in a pretty small area, so he’s racking up solo kills to brag about to the rest of Squad Levi, _and_ there really isn’t anyone around to see him, so he can let loose a little with his lightning. 

Little green shocks of energy are running over his body, his reflexes are sharper, his movements even more fluid, and the strength behind his sword swings slices them through skin like a hot knife through butter. 

He gets to let loose a little.

He has one quick close call, nearabout missing an abnormal leaping to bite his cable, but the Berserker tackles it out of the way and he carries through the motion, calling out thanks to the Titan who probably just saved his life. (Which is a _little_ weird, now that he thinks about it.)

He gets lost in his motions so thoroughly that he looks and yelps to see that the Berserker is pinned to a building, missing its arms and chunks of its legs, mouth lolling as the other Titans gnawed on it.

“Hey, fuck off!” he yells, charging forward to defend his newly-minted comrade. He’s a blur of death that’s come to _destroy,_ and he plays his part admirably, slaughtering the pesky little bastards chewing on his ally. “You okay, big guy?” he calls, from a safe distance (he’s not _stupid_ ).

The Berserker lets out some kind of low, rumbly moan and falls flat on its face. Deku blinks, and squints at whatever weird shit is happening at its neck. Then a whole ass _person_ flops outta there, cadet uniform and all, and Deku zips down there like nobody’s business.

“Hey, kid, you alright?” he asks urgently, hands on the kid’s shoulders. What he _really_ wants to know is what the fuck just happened, but he figures that it’d be poor taste to open with that. The kid blinks dopily, and his head lolls forward to rest on Deku’s shoulder. “You gotta say something, kid. I’m gonna be honest, I’m a little out of my depth here.”

The kid mumbles something unintelligible, and his eyes slide closed. “Ah, fuck!” Deku’s gonna admit it, he’s kinda freaking out here. 

But the kid doesn’t reply.

* * *

Eren’s vision is sliding open, fuzzy white blobs superimposed over his field of sight. The last thing he remembers is the sky before teeth clamped down over his arm and then…

Nothing.

He blinks, and his eyes slide over to focus blearily on a fluttering, blood-spattered Wings of Freedom insignia set on a shifting green backdrop.

_...Heaven?_

His head lolls to the side and he sees Armin clutching one of his arms and Misaka standing slightly in front and to the side, knuckles white around her blade-grips. Over the roar of blood rushing through his ears he hears the (Scout?) in front of him shouting something, voice cutting in and out over the buzzing in his ears. 

The Scout turns to him and he hears the muffled question, “you’re human, right?”

And he’s completely baffled, which surely shows on his face. “...yes?” he replies, wondering why this is even a question. The Scout turns back away from him and yells something to the… officer?

“And you don’t eat humans, do you? No murderous urges to wreak havoc and gorge yourself on human flesh?”

He looks up at the Scout in disbelief. “Uh, no?” 

The Scout beams, and Eren absently notes that his canines are sharper than one would expect.

“Excellent! That makes this much easier,” he replies, and wheels around to place himself firmly between Eren and the people surrounding them. “Hear that, you vultures? He’s a human with the ability to use a Titan form! As a member of the Survey Corps and on behalf of Squad Levi, I’m claiming him for his strategic value in our fight against the Titans, which is more essential now than ever! If you fire on him or these cadets, I’ll have you all court-martialed as traitors against Humanity’s cause!”

Eren gapes at him, and slowly processes what the Scout’s just said.

_Use a Titan form? Claimed for my_ **_strategic value?!_ **

He tries to shoot up to his feet, but falls sideways into Armin’s death-grip and looks at him with eyes wide in confusion and rage.

“A-Armin, w-what’s going-”

“I’ll explain later,” Armin says shakily, “because right now we’re about to be executed and this Scout is trying to save our lives.”

The officer’s eyes are wild, and his hands shake. “Devils! Y-you’re all devils! How do we know you’re not a monster like it is?!”

“You watch your mouth!” the Scout shoots back. “This cadet saved my life and the lives of his comrades, and killed dozens of Titans while he did it! His abilities are a gift to Humanity, and a ray of hope in our fight to survive! He’s going to help us retake Wall Maria, and unless you want to starve to death like the rat you are, you need that done as much as the rest of us! Now, _stand down._ ”

The officer wavered, “B-but-”

“I said _STAND DOWN, SOLDIER!”_

The officer jolts, and instinctively goes into a salute. The others around him follow suit, sheathing blades and falling into a salute, fists over their hearts. Mikasa and Armin follow shakily, and Eren copies slowly, hands trembling. All of them looking at the blood-smeared, green-haired Scout with something like awe.

_Dedicate your hearts._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “‘If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait,” Pixis breathed, “till my renewal should come in a blaze of light.’ Dear Sina. Have the Scouts been hoarding a force of nature all this time and we never even noticed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right, so, this chapter is significantly shorter than the other because I like a dramatic ending. I think I'll probably vaguely skim over a lot of action in AOT to hurry up and get to Deku returning to BNHA, so the next two chapters or so will probably be the last of the AOT world, covering Trost to the basement discovery and trying to fit in Deku mastering person v. person combat and killing his morals regarding that.
> 
> Should be fun.

Deku can see that Pixis is not amused by this new development. Of course, they all know it’s because Deku’s gotten all up in his attempt to threaten/conscript his new comrade, but Deku is having  _ none of it _ . This is (secretly) his fellow  _ (quirked?)  _ superpower buddy, and if the Plus Ultra Incident had happened any other way he’d probably be in the same position as Jaeger is now. 

Which is kind of horrifying to think about. He doesn’t know if he could handle being outed like that and subsequently either collared and leashed by the military or taken down into some torture dungeon to never see the light of day again, and the least he feels he can do is make sure that Jaeger stays in his sights. Squad Levi’ll treat him right, Deku knows. They let  _ Deku _ stick around, after all. 

He needs to make up for not just taking Jaeger’s unconscious body and making a run for it, because if the gamble against that informal firing squad hadn’t worked out Deku probably would have had to use his  _ (quirk?) _ lightning to get them out of there. The other two cadets could have either followed or fended for themselves, since they technically weren’t aware of Jaeger’s abilities and therefore were clean in the eyes of the MPs. 

He probably should have done that in the first place, honestly. He knows how people who’re different  _ (stupid, useless ~~deku~~ ) _ are treated, and the worst Jaeger gets won’t just be name-calling.

He just hopes Erwin backs his little play there when the expedition returns. 

* * *

So, Pixis tells him that they want Jaeger to move the huge boulder and block up the hole in the Wall so that Trost can be retaken. He sarcastically asks Deku if his pet Titan can handle that.

Deku wishes he could punch Pixis in the  _ face _ for that insinuation, but he knows his little bout of insubordination is only being tolerated as long as Pixis is relatively benefiting from it, so he says that yes, of course Jaeger can handle that.

Sina, he hopes Jaeger can handle it.

He takes the kid aside and explains the plan, telling him how the only thing protecting him from total slavery is Deku’s spur-of-the-moment claiming of him as an asset to the Survey Corps. Jaeger is understandably enraged for a moment, but Deku grabs his arms and drags him down (stupid tall people) to hiss in his ear that unless Jaeger wants the two of them to make a run for the Outside and live like cavepeople for the rest of their lives this is the best option. 

Jaeger spouts some bullshit about freedom from oppression and not living like cattle, but the rhetoric is inexplicably familiar to Deku  _ (I’ll be a hero just like All-) _ and so he knows how to reroute those thoughts to make them useful. He tells Jaeger that he must be  _ selfish _ , wanting to abandon the rest of Humanity behind the walls. He says that if Jaeger truly wants to make a difference he can do it, with the Scouts, but that right now unless they retake Trost they will be executed,  _ do you understand?! _

And Jaeger subsides into quiet contemplation, then nods silently, fists clenched by his sides. 

“I’ll do it,” he declares.

“Fantastic,” Deku responds dryly. “Glad you’re on board. Now, how confident are you in your ability to control your Titan form?”

Jaeger’s expression twists into a grimace and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “Honestly, sir, the first time I ever did this was at the initial battle, and I’m not even sure what triggered it.”

Deku makes a face. “Okay, that’s not good. Well, when we fought in Trost initially, you seemed to realize that I was on your side or something cause you didn’t try to eat me or anything. I’m hoping that that’ll translate over to a bit of a battle-kinship this time around, so I’ll be your rear-guard while you carry the boulder. Few plans survive contact with the enemy, so we’re keeping it simple with room for improvisation. You ready, soldier?”

Jaeger straightened, and nodded resolutely. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

Pixis wants to do something stupid like announce to the whole battleforce that Jaeger can shift to a Titan form, but Deku knocks him straight real quick and tells him what a horrible idea that is. Pixis relents, and concedes that maybe announcing Eren’s abilities to the general public isn’t the smartest idea. So he plays it off as previously unknown engineering technology, and Deku takes Jaeger into position.

He hopes to Sina that this works.

* * *

There are  _ so many of them. _ Jaeger’s Titan is laboring under the boulder after having been unexpectedly kicked into gear by Armin (he’ll have to remember that the ocean is a kind of trigger for Jaeger, in case he falls apart again) and Deku is channeling his inner Levi as he deals death in an ever-shifting pattern around the Berserker, an impassable border of destruction. 

He gave into the lightning long ago, seeing the way that the Berserker’s eyes tracked the electric-green tendrils trailing behind him like a beacon. There’s a corner of his mind that gibbers in terror, thinking about how exposed he is here, about how _anyone could see this,_ but he just _can’t stop._ This is _it,_ this is their _chance,_ and Deku’s not going to waste it.

Beneath the crackling verdant energy, his veins glow a soft gold, and he knows his eyes are literally blazing in the shadow of his determined face. He twists and dives, flesh cleaving beneath his blades with barely a whisper of protest. His muscles twist and ripple with inhuman grace, features twisted in savage, unholy glee at the blood ribboning through steam-choked air. The Scouting cloak is soaked in blood, and his hand throbs with heated pain, but it all fades into the background as more and more gaping, hungry mouths are denied.

_ (One for All, fifty percent!) _

_ (Only fifty percent? Pathetic.  _

_I._

_ Want.  _

  
  


**_M̸̢̧̭̱̥̥̱̥̻̮̒̍̄̆͜ͅǒ̵̡͔͓̋̓̄̌͊̈́̋͊̒̿̕̚ͅr̵̢͇̖̦̲̙͚̱̦͙͍̖̰̰̮̃͌͆̑̒̉̋̇̄͘͘͝͠ȅ̸̗͎̠̩̳̘̗̿̀̅ͅ.)_ **

  
  


And the world dissolves into a lovely, lovely green.

* * *

Pixis is frozen.

He’s seen a lot of strange things in his many years, but this is… 

He has  _ never,  _ in all his life,  _ ever  _ seen anything like  _ this _ .

He faintly recalls some misquoted saying from the quietest echelons of society, some whisper from beyond.

“‘If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait,” Pixis breathed, “till my renewal should come in a blaze of light.’ Dear  _ Sina _ . Have the Scouts been hoarding a force of nature all this time and we never even noticed?”

Pixis is rarely ever impressed. He attributes this to his unconventional eccentricities and high standards. 

But this is different somehow, because Deku No-Surname, the fast-track, the top-of-his-class, the Squad-Levi-at-sixteen, is  _ glorious. _

Even from his command position on the Wall, he and everyone beside him can see the verdant ring of lightning encompassing the unassuming Scout, the way that every flick of movement leaves a shrieking, steaming corpse in its wake. 

Goddamnit, he and Erwin are going to have to have  _ words. _

* * *

Reiner’s ready, he’s in position to transform and bust through Wall Rose, to finish the mission. He clenches his fists, and his fingernails dig into the pads of his hands. He’s ready, he’s  _ ready, he’s- _

"...what the fuck is that?"

* * *

The Armoured Titan does not appear. The Wall is sealed. The Berserker  _ (Jaeger, not that the people know it) _ has dissolved away after doing its part with the gigantic boulder, and every Titan in Trost has been completely and utterly decimated by the Angel of Death. 

_ (That’s what the soldiers are calling him, the Scout with the green doe-eyes and the small, slender stature. The 104th remembers him, the one who led them out of their first slaughter, and the civilians whose lives he saved at the evacuation never caught his name but his hair was very recognizable. They’re saying he’s sent from Heaven to save them all, to massacre monsters so that they might live another day. Word of the Angel spreads all the way through to the Interior, has already passed into legend, except the Angel of Death is not a soldier’s tall tale. _

_ Deku No-Surname is very, very real.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quote is from Job 14


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Trost, and Deku's emotional gaslighting of Eren Jaeger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so this chapter kinda just wrote itself. I guess I'm going to drag out the AOT arc a little longer, not much plot happens here. 
> 
> tw: mentions of torture, emotional manipulation

The next months are a blur of battles and schemes. A whole new bandage has apparently been ripped off with the Berserker’s presence in Trost. 

Eren was quietly taken in by the Survey Corps, and the matter of his abilities was need-to-know, as he was protected by Deku’s last-minute claiming of him for the Scouts. A private counsel was held with the main leaders of the military, who agreed that as long as Eren’s Titan power was only used in active combat zones, with no chance for collateral damage, he would be conscripted for use by the Scouts in the fight to retake Wall Maria.

The main reason that they acquiesced to this deal was the newly-named Angel of Death, in all his five-foot-five glory, glaring at them with his arms crossed over his chest from Erwin’s left, beside Captain Levi, Humanity’s Strongest, who was on Erwin’s right at five-foot-two.

Erwin himself, walking between/in front of the two was seven-foot-four, which painted an interesting picture that passerby probably would have laughed at had they not been so awed by the presence of the three legends.

One of the servants they passed snicked quietly into their fist, which drew instant glares from both Deku and Levi, which shut them up pretty quick. Deku and Levi shared a commiserating look behind Erwin’s back. 

Short people solidarity and all, you understand. 

* * *

The MPs made a lot of noise about bringing Deku in “for some questions,” which absolutely nobody was fooled by and the Scouting Regiment shot down almost immediately, under the same clause they had claimed Eren with, except that since Deku was already a respected member of the Scouts  _ and  _ a member of Special Operations Squad Levi, he had much more autonomy, working more as a soldier rather than a weapon like Eren was being treated.

Deku, of course, doesn’t like the idea of  _ anyone  _ being treated like a weapon, but he wasn’t going to throw a fit about it. He knew it was only on paper anyways, and the deal they’d cut gave him a lot more freedom than the original idea of “chain him up underground somewhere to be slowly and systematically dissected for the rest of his life.”

* * *

The rest of Squad Levi seems to be treating Deku the same way they always have, probably because they’ve already known about his little… quirk.  _ (Ha.) _ They’re already a little familiar with drawing awed looks, as part of the elite squad, and so they make a point of smiling affectionately at him and ruffling his hair while simultaneously crowding around him, shielding him from the attention of the other Scouts. 

* * *

Eren’s staying at the Headquarters with them, and Deku makes sure to seek him out daily for a little friendly conversation. The Scouts don’t really know what to make of the hotheaded teenager running around the base, and Deku has apparently set himself up as some sort of supervisor to keep Eren out of trouble. There’s not much for Eren to do around here except clean or practice with his ODM gear, so Deku catches up with him at breakfast and gives him his chores for the day, then tracks him down in the afternoon to spar with him.

Deku saw how Eren’s Titan form seemed to be able to use hand-to-hand techniques against other Titans, and he’d pulled the boy’s records to see that he’d been second in his class in hand-to-hand, which gave them an excellent starting point.

He wanted to practice that over and over, because logic dictated that the more instinctual the moves were for Jaeger the easier the Berserker would be able to utilize them. Plus, the two of them had abruptly become persons-of-interest to powerful people, and while Jaeger’s part in the retaking of Trost wasn’t publicly known, he wouldn’t be able to rely on his Titan abilities if he was cornered by some shady government operators. This went the same way for Deku, since his quirk had become so well-known that there wasn’t really any way that he could use it outside of combat zones.

Deku sat Jaeger down one day and quietly explained all the horror stories that Jaeger needed to know, expounded on the whispered rumors of the less-upright division of the MPs that focused on population suppression. He saw the revulsion and disgust in Jaeger’s eyes as he told him what happened to the people with what the Crown might have called “ideas beyond their station”. 

Deku had, for all intents and purposes, grown up oppressed and in fear, not knowing whether he would get to eat day-to-day, seeing first-hand the disappearances of bright people who wanted to walk out of the shadows, had been told by blank-faced coworkers that the missing had brought it upon themselves.

He needed Jaeger to understand that the monolith that crouched in the Interior and prowled the shining streets hid a brutal, ruthless political machine. That if Jaeger did not do as Deku had and find himself some powerful allies, make himself useful, learn how to pick battles and when he _needed_ to cast his eyes down, how to bow his head, to hide his fury under carefully arranged features that he would be taken in the night and _no one_ would come looking.

“I found out about my little quirk under the best circumstances possible,” Deku said quietly, “with people I trusted and who trusted me, utilizing it to save their lives. Sure, I trusted Squad Levi, but I’ll never know if the reason they didn’t turn me in immediately was that my power is  _ useful. _ They helped me learn to control it and suppress it, but I can never go back to the way things were before, when we were on an even playing field.” 

He takes Jaeger’s hands and looks him in the eyes. 

“The two of us are  _ different _ from the others, and the world will never let us forget it. There are lulls in the action and they smile at us during peacetime, but when the chips are down, the two of us are  _ not. Like. Them. _ And at the base of every human’s psyche is a fear of the unknown. They would turn on us in a  _ heartbeat, _ if there is nothing for them in us,” Jaeger’s hands are shaking- “so we will smile, and we will laugh, and we will be  _ like them, _ we will blend in as best we can, we will pick and choose our battles, and we will  _ make ourselves useful, _ so that when the chips are down, in their eyes, no matter how different or freakish they see us, we will not be left behind. And if we disappear in the night they will  _ need us _ , so they will come looking and they won’t be able to leave us in whatever hellhole the MPs toss us in. Do you understand, Eren?”

Jaeger’s eyes are wide and he grips Deku’s hands desperately. “My friends would come looking for me, they  _ would- _ ”

“Would they?” Deku asks softly. “Have you seen them, spoken to them since Trost? Have you sat down across from them and met their eyes? Or do they turn their heads, not quite looking at you, not quite able to look at you and see anything but the Berserker that so-closely resembles the mindless beings that destroyed their home?” his voice is deceptively gentle, and he strokes the back of Jaeger’s hand with his thumb. “And even if they could, what could they do? They’re cadets, Eren. Even if they didn’t look away, what would they be able to do?”

Jaeger’s eyes well with angry tears, and he drops his head onto their joined hands. 

“I have made myself useful, Eren. I am a member of the Special Operations Squad, and in the negotiations for your custody, I stood at the Commander of the Survey Corps’ shoulder, beside Captain Levi, Humanity’s Strongest. After Trost, the MPs tried to wheedle me out of the Scouts, but Erwin’s grip on me and my abilities was firm and he would not be swayed, as Levi whispered in his ear what a good soldier I am. These are my connections, Eren, my tethers to the mortal plane. If I had displayed that unnatural power back when I was a street rat in Trost, you can bet I would be parceled out into little jars in some obscure basement right now. In front of that firing squad, the only thing that kept us from having to flee was my ability to call on the Survey Corps’ influence.” Deku feels Jaeger shake at the mention of that terrifying moment, when he and his friends were almost snuffed out like disobedient candles.

“When Pixis called you my pet, I said nothing. When you were bartered for and traded like a tool, I said nothing. Do you know why, Eren?”

Jaeger shook his head wildly, brown strands of hair whipping around his head. 

“Yes, you do,” Deku said gently. “Tell me why I said nothing. Show me that you understand what I’m telling you.”

Jaeger hiccuped what sounded like a sob, but lifted his head and looked at Deku with dull eyes. “Because you have to choose your battles, and even if they think I’m freakish and scary, a tool is useful. And if I want to survive I need to be useful.”

Deku’s lips curled into a slow, sad smile. “That’s right. Even if they think we’re freakish and scary, a tool is useful. If we want to survive we need to be useful.”

A sob catches in Jaeger’s throat, and he hesitantly leans forward. Deku sees what he’s doing, and leans forward to envelop Jaeger in his arms. Jaeger melts into the embrace, and clutches at the back of Deku’s shirt with desperate, grasping fingers as he buries his face in Deku’s shoulder.

“I never wanted this,” gasps Jaeger, “I wanted to kill them all but _not like this_ , not if it meant losing my friends- my family, _please,_ Sina don’t take them away from me they’re _all I have_ and I just want to _protect them,_ **_please-_** ”

“Shh,” Deku soothes, running a gentle hand over Eren’s hair. “I’ll help you, Berserker. I’ll teach you how to walk the tightrope, I’ll show you the way into their hearts, I’ll help you blend in with them so well that they’ll forget the difference for a moment. I’ll teach you how to be useful, Berserker, and if you can walk the line like I do you’ll never have to leave them-”

“I don’t-” Jaeger cries, “I don’t want to live in a  _ cage- _ ”

“Then where will you live?” Deku asks simply. “You can’t have it both ways, Berserker. You’ll have to choose, and I’ll follow you whichever way you go, but you have to choose  _ now _ . You can’t start looking back once you pick a path. I won’t leave you to wander alone, whether you stay or go, but once you choose you can never go back. Choose now, Eren. Will you stay to protect your family? You know that if you leave, the MP’s attention will turn to them. Will you abandon them? Or are we going to flee?”

“I-I-...”

“We could run, you know. Between your Titan ability and my enhanced strength, we could probably survive outside the Walls for a least a month, with a little luck. It would be a suicide mission, sure, but we would be free for a little while. Is that what you want, Eren? To make a run for it and leave the sheep to their fates?”

“I…”

“You think of them as cattle, don’t you? I’ve heard you say it, seen you sneer at passerby going on with their complacent lives. It  _ is _ a little disgusting, isn’t it? Knowing that they’re content to wallow in the mud and receive scraps from the Master’s table three times a day? I know the way you think, Berserker. I’ve seen it in your eyes. It turns your stomach to see them with their blinders. How even now, with Titans clawing at our doors, the Scout recruitment is at an all-time low? You  _ hate _ how they close their doors and tighten the shutters, like they’re just waiting for a storm to pass, hiding from the truth of their reality. You want to be there when they get a wake-up call, want to see the dawning horror in their eyes. Am I right, Berserker?”

“Yes!” Jaeger cried out, jumping to his feet. “Yes, I  _ hate it _ , I  _ hate _ the way they’re complacent, I  _ hate _ the way they take it all lying down, I  _ hate  _ that no one wants to sit up and see that they’re in a cage, I  _ hate _ how we’ve all been raised like  _ lambs to the slaughter, _ and I  _ hate _ that they want  _ nothing _ to do with  _ freedom!  _ Even my own  _ mother- _ ” his voice cracks, “even my own  _ mother  _ was horrified when she found out I wanted to be a Scout. Because it was  _ dangerous, _ ” he snarled. 

Deku nodded. “Is that why you want to kill the Titans?”

“ _ Yessss- _ ” Jaeger hissed, “Because the outside is our  _ birthright- _ ”

“Not ours.”

“...what?”

“It’s not  _ our _ birthright. Have you forgotten already?” Deku questions. 

Jaeger swallows, and his voice shakes as he replies. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” Deku says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands under his chin in contemplation. “We’re different, Berserker. You with your other form, and me with my,” his mouth twists, “ _ unnatural _ abilities. Are we really born into this world with the same allowances, the same heirship? The two of us are different.  _ Freakish.  _ How do you think the rest of the people behind the Walls would respond if they knew what you could do, and you tried to make a claim like that? Even if we, individually, are stronger than they are, they will  _ always _ have the advantage. I may be a superior fighter, but if Erwin wanted me gone all he would have to do would be take me while I’m sleeping and shackle me in the deepest dungeons he can find. I would be helpless. And as for you…” he shrugged. “Levi slaughters Titans every day. I’m sure he could handle you, even  _ if  _ you managed to transform.”

Jaeger stares at him, mouth gaping in horror.

“And your friends? Who do you think would be the first to suffer if you and I made a run for it? Who would be the first people to be asked where you went? What do you think would happen if the information they provided was insufficient? I tortured and interrogated to make a living, before I was conscripted. I know  _ exactly _ what they would do. Would you like to know?”

Jaeger is silent.

“They would start slow, explore their options. Everyone has their own little places that they can’t handle being prodded at, and their reactions will be noted down. They would begin with a question. ‘Where is Eren Jaeger?’ they will ask. And Armin will reply with ‘I don’t know, he didn’t tell me-’ and the faceless MP will say ‘I’m sorry, but that’s not correct. I need you to tell me where Eren Jaeger is, or this will become unpleasant for you.’ Armin will be disbelieving, and his voice will shake. ‘I told you, I don’t-’ but before he can finish, he will be slapped across the face, and his pretty blond hair will be grabbed with a rough fist. ‘I’ll ask you again,’ the MP will say, firmer this time. ‘Where. Is. Eren. Jaeger.’ 

“By the end, your Armin will be screaming, his face will be blotchy with tears, and his body will be mangled. ‘He has nothing useful,’ the MP will say. ‘Bring in the girl.’ And Armin will have to be dragged away, body limp, and Mikasa will stare at his motionless form in horror before she is strapped down herself. ‘We will begin with a simple question,’ the MP will say calmly, still spattered with your Armin’s blood, the tools of his torment laid before her, soiled with his blood as the fluids on the chair seep slowly through her clothes. ‘Where is Eren-’”

“Stop!” Jaeger cries. “Stop, please! Please, I won’t run, I’ll stay, I understand now. I-” his voice breaks quietly. “I understand.”

“It’s different, isn’t it,” Deku says, watching Jaeger with calculating eyes. “If you’re not the one being hurt. You want to be free, but not at the cost of your family’s slow torment. I understand,” he admits. Jaeger looks up at him with teary eyes. “Being able to abandon the people you care about isn’t strength. It’s selfish. You’re not betraying anything by sparing them from that fate, because if they died because of you then you would be the worst kind of monster.”

Jaeger looks at him with hopeful eyes. “Really?” he whispers quietly, a lilting question.

Deku nods. “They may call us monsters, in the end,” he says. “But only  _ we  _ determine if they’re right.”

Jaeger nods.

“So I will teach you to be useful. The more useful you are, the more you can get away with. Eventually, who knows?” Deku shrugs. “You might get a taste of freedom after all, Eren.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, let me do some explanations here.
> 
> Yeah, Deku's a little messed up, but you have to remember that he has pretty much no recollection of a world where quirks are commonplace. In fact, he's got lingering trauma from being /quirkless/, and was mocked his whole life for being different/freaky. I feel like "useful" would be kind of a stickler for him, because even if 'deku' doesn't mean 'useless' in AOT, the subconscious connotation of it is still there.
> 
> He was discounted, looked down on, told to kill himself, told that no one would miss him, and bullied both mentally and physically for being "useless" because he was quirkless, aka 'different'. The trauma of that doesn't just magically disappear with his acceptance into UA and receiving OFA, but probably strengthened his 'quirkless=worthless' mindset because now that he had a quirk/was the same as everyone else, he was treated kindly and got to start on his dream of becoming a hero.
> 
> In AOT, a world where everyone is "normal", the equivalent of 'quirkless' is 'quirked', which both Deku and Eren are. Deku becomes obsessed with proving that he is 'useful' and "blending in", so that their treatment of him won't change.
> 
> His new dream casts the Titans as 'villains', and the Scouts as 'heroes', and the MPs as the system that would drag him down if he couldn't prove that he wasn't sub-human, that he deserved to stand equally with his peers, that he was "useful".
> 
> And then along comes Eren, who is in Deku's same situation but doesn't have the learned finesse of how to "stay useful", how to "walk the tightrope", so Deku takes it upon himself to help him out in the most convoluted way possible.
> 
> Deku tells Eren that he could leave, that he could "make a run for it", but calls it a "suicide mission". Deku equates escaping outside the Walls to his battle against the lure of suicide, and just like his dream of becoming a hero held him back in BNHA, the Scouts hold him back in AOT, his "tethers to the mortal plane". Deku's other argument from BNHA was a combination of not wanting to hurt Bakugou and not wanting to leave his mother behind, which he twists here into his story of what will happen to Armin and Mikasa, of how it would "abandon the sheep to their fates" and how it would be "selfish" to take the easy way out.
> 
> He doesn't do this with the intention of hurting Eren, he's just trying to make him understand. And when Eren finally gives in, saying that he won't run, to Deku that means Eren is going to live. He doesn't realize that he's just stamped out Eren's dream of leaving the Walls in favor of telling him to protect his friends, that "leaving them to die... would make you the worst kind of monster".
> 
> He's calling Eren "Berserker", which is his name for Eren's Titan form to try and remind him that he /is/ that monster that they see, that he /is/ different from normal people. By using a different name he reminds Eren every time he says it that Eren is different from the others, and not necessarily in a good way if the context of "Berserker" is anything to go off of. This will eventually develop into a Pavlovian response for Eren every time he's called that, a little mental reminder that he's a "freak" and all the behaviors that Deku is trying to foster in him that he needs to exercise. 
> 
> In the end, Deku tells Eren that maybe if he pretends for long enough he'll "get a taste of freedom after all", meaning that in the end he'll die, and finally be free.
> 
> Deku's mindset is NOT HEALTHY, and I don't condone it in any way, but it's also completely in line with what I imagine he would become if he grew up twisted by AOT.
> 
> That's all. Hope you guys enjoyed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren/Deku fluffs and the slaughter of Squad Levi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one gets a leeeeeetle dark and eren/deku are being creepy little yanderes but!! still platonically!! for now- idk I don't have much experience writing romance, if u guys what me to try a hand at it I guess comment or whatever, but unless y'all like really really want that we're staying queerplatonic pls and thank u.
> 
> also when I say Deku's hair is "half-back" think like Aizawa's half man-bun thing or Shimura Nana's hair, either works.
> 
> tw for scent marking, language, violence and suicidal thoughts

As time passes, Eren can tell that Deku is slowly letting him see behind the mask. When Levi gives Deku new instructions, (watching Eren with distrustful eyes) to make sure that Eren stays out of trouble (and damn, Eren is starting to understand what it means to be the new freak and the one who’s useful, because Levi  _ trusts _ Deku in a way he will probably never trust Eren  _ unless Deku shows you how to make him- _ )

Deku moves Eren to the room beside his. “To keep a closer eye on him, Petra. Plus, we’re a little close in age, y’know?” Deku says, scratching the back of his neck in what Eren has been allowed to tell is faked shyness- “It’d be nice to have a friend a little closer to my own age.”

Petra laughs, and ruffles Deku’s fluffy green hair, mussing his neat half-back style. He squishes into his shoulders and looks up at her with a mock scowl, then pointedly fixes his hair and flounces away, Petra giggling in the wake of his dramatic exit.

Little, almost insignificant daily interactions that seem inconsequential to those around him, but that night when Deku gets back to his room and slides inside, holding the door open for Eren to quietly trail in behind him, when the door clicks shut Eren can almost see Deku’s mask fall off, slipping away like a cloak left hanging by the door for him to put back on as soon as he steps out.

The shift is palpable as Deku flops back onto his bed, unceremoniously shucking off his shirt and tossing it away for to land perfectly on the back of his modest, rough-hewn desk chair.

Eren swallows, his mouth suddenly going a little dry. 

He’s still not used to the casual displays of trust that Deku’s showing him- allowed into Deku’s safe place, allowed to see Deku without his mask, allowed to see Deku  _ vulnerable- _

Something in his chest stutters, and he looks down at himself with a frown. He should probably see if the resident doctor, Hanji, thought it might be some kind of medical problem. He’s been feeling a little odd lately. Suddenly warm, short of breath, stuttering, and now heart palpitations?

Maybe it was allergies.

Blegh.

He looks up from his train of thought to see Deku frowning at him. 

“Something on your mind?” Deku asks, concern evident in his tone. 

“No, nothing important,” Eren frowns, walking over to sit next to Deku on the unmade bed. “I think I might have allergies.”

Deku blinks, but leans forward to knock shoulders with Eren, smiling warmly. “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”

Eren nods, and smiles at the green-haired Scout. “Of course,” he replies, and leans back, hands drawn close to his chest in a display of his insecurity, rare to anyone else, but common here.

He doesn’t have to worry about hiding his weaknesses from Deku.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he blurts, then blushes. “I- I mean, just to sleep is all. The other room is… nice, it’s nice, really!” and he blushes again at Deku’s visible confusion. “But it’s a little… quiet. I mean, I spent three years sleeping in the barracks with all the other guys from the 104th, and my own room just doesn’t feel quite as… well…”

“Safe,” Deku says, smiling gently, looking pleased. “That’d be fine, Berserker. I’m happy you feel safe with me.”

And Eren smiles happily, then pulls off his shirt too and shifts around till he has his back facing the door and opens his arms in a shy invitation. Deku grins, happy and pleased, and shuffles around to lay with his back tucked up into Eren’s chest, pulling at Eren’s arms so that they wind around his torso, trapping himself against Eren’s protective embrace. Deku hums contentedly, and Eren blows out the lamp, then pulls the bedcovers up around his shoulders and around Deku’s hands holding his. He can feel Deku’s heart thumping, his hands pressed up against the Scout’s chest, and he takes comfort in the steady beat, lulling him into an easy sleep.

His last thoughts are of how happy he is that Deku trusts him like this.

_ (And Deku spends a moment just to internally wriggle around in happiness, because Eren-Berserker-Friend- _ **_ṃ̴̢͍̞̫̃͊̉͝ȉ̵̮̟͔̘͆̒͑̇͝͝ǹ̵̞̭̼͒̋̾̂̒̄̊̃͊͠e̴͔̠̣̎̓̾̈͗͊͛͑_ ** _ feels  _ **_safe_ ** _ with Deku, he  _ **_does,_ ** _ he  _ **_does_ ** _!) _

* * *

It’s time for their first expedition, and those from the 104th who joined the Scouts will be coming along. Before they leave, they all want to know why Eren got out here earlier, and why he doesn’t sleep in the barracks, but Eren smiles and laughs it off. Jean unintentionally distracts them all by going on a tirade about what a stupid, suicidal bastard he is, then asks if he’s met the Angel yet. 

Eren is confused for a moment, before he remembers that Deku has a moniker now. He responds that he’s seen him around the castle sometimes, why? Have  _ you? _

Which of course Jean takes as a challenge, and sets him off on a lengthy description of the “Angel”’s speech to them at the evacuation, about how he had inspired them all before they even  _ knew  _ he was the Angel. Eren makes a show of being appropriately impressed and dismissive at once, and when Connie asks him where  _ he  _ was for the evacuation, he just spouts something about getting separated from the group, heroically slaughtering Titans, and then going back over the Wall when he heard the retreat.

He throws a guilty look at Armin and Mikasa, who know very well what he was doing and have been trying to get his attention for the past five minutes so that they can sneak off to chat properly.

He’s determined not to give them the chance just yet. He wants to get his story straight first.

When Sasha wants to know why he wasn’t part of the Trost reclamation operation, he sheepishly explains that he may or may not have twisted his ankle in the initial battle and that he’d been stuck in the medical bays before they even got word on the operation.

Everyone is scandalized that he missed  _ the _ Angel of Death for a twisted ankle. Eren smiles, and carefully hides his disgust at their reactions. 

(Deku is not a _show pony._ Sure, Eren knows that the more influence his title holds the more freedom Deku will have, but that doesn’t mean he has to _like it._ _Deku’s voice whispers quietly in his head, words like “they will always see us as_ ** _different_** _, something to be considered_ ** _inhuman_** _. In the end, they’ll call us_ ** _monsters-_** _”_ but Eren puts those thoughts away for now. He just wants a normal moment with his friends, and a few little white lies have secured that for him. There, see? _Easy-_ )

* * *

He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Armin and Mikasa before they’re shuffling off to get some sleep. The expedition moves out early in the morning, and everyone’s been instructed to get to bed early. They need to be at one-hundred percent tomorrow.

Their lives depend on it.

Eren spends the night with Deku tucked in his arms and his nose buried in the crook of Deku’s neck, every breath alternating between filling his nose with Deku’s sweet, heady scent and sending his own warm breath skittering over Deku’s throat.

If anyone got close enough to Deku’s vulnerable throat, hopefully the sharp, blood-scented residue of a strong, Titan-slaughtering shifter would give them some idea of what type of death they were inviting to themself if they came closer.

_ (A long, slow, painful one, with lots of screaming involved, but of course that was only if his Deku didn’t execute them first.) _

* * *

The morning dawned clear and beautiful, which was only slightly ironic, considering that at least a few of the people looking up at this sweet blue sky would be dead and devoured by sunset.

They rode out of the city with their heads held high, Squad Levi in the formation’s center, Eren with them.

People lined the roads cheering, craning their necks for a glimpse of the famous Angel. Upon spotting the slight green-haired figure they cheered all the louder, and Deku waved shyly, shoulders back and a sweet smile on his face, hair tied up with a leather cord in its normal half-back style. After the obligatory crowd-pleasing, Deku turned back to face the gate, chin up slightly. He could feel Eren’s gaze burning a hole in the back of his head, and he struggled to smother a savage grin.

Didn’t Eren know that even if the Survey Corps was being massacred around them, Deku would make sure Eren made it out alive?

It’s the  _ Titans _ that need to be worried.

* * *

Deku may have been a little overconfident.

In his _defense,_ he was not expecting a fucking _trained army of Titans ambushing them on a flat open plain._ This was, in fact, unprecedented. Deku was not quite sure what to do.

So he did as he always did when he had no other smartass ideas and looked at his commanding officer with a blatant question in his eyes.

_ Well, Levi? You’re in charge around here, which means you’re saddled with the decision-making process. Enjoy killing off your consciousness one hard play at a time, sir. _

Of course, he didn’t really explicitly state that last bit, but it was heavily implied. Deku knew Levi got the message when he huffed, irritated, and leaned low into his horse, face blank as options churned behind his eyes. 

It seemed Levi was also a bit out of his scheming depth.

“Erwin?” he yelled as they thundered across the open terrain. “What’s the move?”

Ah, yes. Good choice. Erwin was notorious for his scheming prowess and, more crucially, he had no one left to pass the buck to. Erwin calculated a  _ lot _ in a split second, and opened his mouth to call back to Squad Levi, but then, naturally, everything went to hell.

* * *

So, apparently, there is  _ another _ Titan running around being piloted by human intelligence. Ability similar to Eren’s?

_ Most likely. _

Damn. Keeping the Berserker’s situation squeaky clean had just gotten a helluva lot harder.

Had Deku pissed off any divine powers lately? Maybe? Possibly? Probably? 

Fuck.

_ ( ~~Stupid League of Villians.)~~ _

_ (Wait, what the fuck? No, no. Focus. Figure it out later.) _

* * *

So, they’re supposed to be engineering some kind of  _ trap. _ For a Titan with  _ intelligence.  _ And they’re riding through this forest with said Titan riding on their ass, and Eren is looking a little shifty.  _ (Pun. Bad pun, but pun. Ugh, shut up. Not the time.)  _ His eyes dart to Deku, but he shakes his head subtly. Eren stops looking down at his “biting hand”, but the worry in his eyes doesn’t fade.

_ (Does he not trust me? I… not the time. But-) _

Deku feels the same, honestly. Sitting light in his saddle, hands twitchy. They’ve all got their hoods up, per Armin’s advice, something about the blonde shifter _looking for someone._ And, damn, that’s a little disturbing. He thinks he could probably kill her, if it came down to the wire. 

_ (Down to Eren, you mean.) _

* * *

They had her in their _hands,_ and then that bitch fucking _screamed,_ and now there’s Titans fucking _everywhere_ , and they’re _eating her,_ _sweet Sina, he was prepared for a lot of things when he woke up this morning but he has to admit that he is blatantly shocked._

And then she got _out,_ and she _chased them,_ and _shifted,_ and Squad Levi is facing her alone.

Sina, he hopes they can do this. 

But his comrades are overconfident, and this Titan is something new.

And in a blur they ar e a ll g on e.

.

.

.

Deku is frozen, he ca n ‘t m o ve -

His squad, wh e re a re th ey, h e n ee d s to f ind t h em , t h ose cor pse s a re no t rEAL-

Levi is b la nk, a nd f or on ce Huma nit y’s St ron gest l os es co nce n trat io n.

E e e -ren, where is- w here i s h e-

_ She is looking at him. _

_ She stares at Eren with dead eyes, malice pouring off of her. _

_ Eren is the target. _

_ She. _

_ Is. _

_ Here. _

_ To. _

_ Take. _

_ Him. _

_ From. _

_ Me. _

_. _

_ Bitch, you fucking thought. _

* * *

There is no gradual buildup, no testing of the waters. Deku. Is. Fucking.  _ Pissed. _ He’s not playing around, he’s really not. Trost?  _ Ha.  _ They thought  _ that  _ was the best he could do?

Ha. Ha ha.

No.

That was blind, empty, mindless.

A  _ stroll. _

Deku wasn’t genuinely  _ angry  _ back at Trost, now that he thinks about it. His fury is usually more… general, and anything directed at a specific person was fleeting, now that he looks back.

But this fury is not going to fade.

She has slaughtered Squad Levi, and they three are all that remains. Squad Levi might not have been his in the same way Eren is, but they were  _ his _ , in every way a comrade can be.

He thinks he may have loved them.

So many life debts woven between them, and in the end, all he can do is… well.

Slaughter this bitch in their names, he supposes. 

_ Yes, _ he decides, as his blade-grips creak.  _ Her bloodied corpse at my feet would make me feel considerably better. _

_ This is all I can do for them. _

_ Sina, I’m so sorry. _

They three are all that’s left. Eren is  _ the _ one, and Levi is-

Is his-

Comrade, in every way that matters.

_ I can do this for him. _

And, for the second time, the world dissolves.

* * *

Levi does not understand.

He- he does not understand. 

He has seen people, so many people brutally slaughtered without mercy. And his every action afterward carries them, the weight of their lives driving his blades forward.

But he does not understand this. 

His- his squad is-

_ Please. _

_ Please, no. _

_ Please, not again, not like this. _

He doesn’t know if he can muster up the energy to move from his frozen position.

_ (With the way his entire squad has just fallen, he wonders if in a moment he won’t need to worry about moving at all. He wonders if, maybe, just this once, he could hesitate, and then quickly join them in the most honorable way possible. He wonders if this clearing will be his last stand.) _

They’ve called him Humanity’s Strongest but goddamn it, he’s so  _ tired. _

_ (Can this be the last?) _

_. _

_ (please?) _

He wonders idly why he’s not as horrified by the thought as he usually would be. He’s become practiced at batting those thoughts out of his head, even when his shoulders droop heavily in the privacy of his rooms, every soldier he’s watched die pressing down on him, every hopeful face he’s seen pushing him to drop his head, gently urging him to  _ lay it all down, give in to the fate you know you can’t run from for much longer. _

But he’s stood up, and he’s trudged on-  _ (but his squad was always there to pick him back up again-) _

-wait, Deku, Deku’s still- 

_ Oh. _

_ Oh, shit. This bitch is screwed. _

* * *

And a storm is given form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right so that was fun
> 
> I'm writing this note on zero hours of sleep so I guess I'll add analysis on Levi's thought pattern later.
> 
> ...probably.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down, and Deku demonstrates some extracurricular skills for Levi and Hanji. Also, a Deku&Mikasa bromance forms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, getting into manga spoilers towards the end here (I think). I've decided I'm not going to do the Marley arc, because now that I'm actually writing this I'm realizing the crazy amount of plot intricacies involved, and so I'm kina skimming over describing a lot of plot points here.  
> If you're sorta-following but are confused, the official AOT timeline is 
> 
> here: https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline 
> 
> spoilers included. I'm putting Deku back in BNHA before the Marley arc, to support Eren's canonical slow descent into madness. 
> 
> trigger warnings; grief, implied underage sex, explicit torture, and Deku rips off a dick.
> 
> literally.

_Annie Leonhart_ , Deku muses to himself as he uses his boot to turn the corpse to the side so that he can see her face. _Pity she chose the wrong side._

Deku hums and steps back, sheathing his blades. 

“Levi?” he asks quietly. “Would you like to spend some time brutalizing the body, or should I go ahead and carry her back?”

Levi seems to snap out of a daze, and his face twitches a little. Deku waits patiently for him to gather his thoughts, but a crackling sound draws his attention back to the body, blades out in a flash, but they weren’t necessary. All three of them watched in confusion as Annie encases herself in a crystal pod, growing up around her and preserving her slumped form, blood ribboned through the clear rock like roots through the ground.

“Damn,” Deku said. “That’s new.”

* * *

When they get back, there is lots of bureaucracy that they’re supposed to be dealing with. Key word _supposed._ Erwin, in a rare moment of sympathy, has spared them from the political hell that this was going to be, seeing as they watched their long-time squad be slaughtered. 

Deku just… wants to be with Eren for a little while. Just the two of them. His rage from yesterday is all burnt out, and now he just feels _empty._

He just needs to be with Eren. He just needs to feel safe for a little bit.

He’s so _tired._

* * *

Everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Erwin is being summoned to the Interior to be questioned about Annie Leonhart. He needs someone who was there to go with him. 

Deku’s the only option, honestly. 

Levi hasn’t left his rooms, and nobody with half a brain wants Eren anywhere near the Interior, so in the morning when they’re getting ready to head out Deku knocks quietly on Levi’s door. There’s a shuffling inside, but no voice.

“Captain?” Deku asks softly. The shuffling stops, and then the door creaks open.

“What is it, Deku,” Levi replies, sounding exhausted. There’s dark smudges under his eyes and his hair is an uncharacteristic bird’s nest.

“I’m escorting Erwin to the Interior today. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be gone for a few days, and ask if you’d mind keeping an eye on Eren while I’m out.”

Levi squints at him, eyes dull, and sighs. “Yeah,” he says, voice raspy. “I should probably get moving,” he pauses, and considers what he’s about to say next. “Thank you.”

Deku nods, and smiles grimly. “Job’s not done, sir.”

Levi huffs. “Shitty brat,” he mumbles, and ruffles Deku’s hair. 

It is a gesture so characteristic of Petra that Deku almost cries.

* * *

So _apparently_ , all the time it takes the collective 104th plus Levi and Hanji to cause chaos is three days, because when Erwin and Deku get back after giving their statements, shit has gone _down._ There are Titans _behind the Walls,_ right in the South. Riders are sent out to warn people and, hopefully, figure out where the breach was so that they can cobble something to seal it up.

Because if they can’t, frankly, they’re all fucking screwed.

* * *

The Utgard battle is unprecedented. Deku was resting his bones (literally, because if he used his lightning too much too often it would… _rattle_ his insides in a way he did not like and did not want to push) But they were _surrounded_ and it was _night_ and Deku’s _bones_ hurt, _fuck-_

* * *

So, okay, Ymir is a shifter and Krista Lenz is… not Krista? _(Historia? What kinda stupid-ass name is-)_

“Anyone else have any dramatic proclamations of hidden abilities or noble lineage to throw out?” Deku asked blandly as they were riding away from the stone ruins. Everyone turned to look at him incredulously, and he shrugged, looking forward. “Honest question,” he said. 

“We think Armin might be Erwin’s secret love child,” Eren piped up with a shit-eating grin, and Deku gasped in mock incredulity.

“And you never _told_ me! Don’t worry, Armin, I’ll make sure to introduce you,” he winked. “He’s very personable once you get to know him.”

Armin blushed brightly, and sank down into his saddle as everyone laughed.

* * *

Reiner. And. Bertholdt. Are. Shifters.

They. Have. Taken. Eren.

Deku. Has. Lost. Him.

_Okay. Okay, okay, calm down, calm DOWN. Bones. How are bones? Not good. Still rattled from last night. I really don’t want to know what happens if they’re pushed further, so let’s be smart. No, no, be SMART. You cannot go charging into every fight you see. You chastise Berserker for the same thing, don’t make more mistakes. Use that brain that’s kept you alive all these years. Okay._

_Okay._

_Allies._

_Levi. Where’s Levi? With Erwin. Okay, next option._

_Mikasa, maybe? Invested in Eren, yes. Excellent fighter, yes. Willing to commit insubordination and leave these pussies in the dust to go bring Eren back as quickly as possible?_

_...possibly._

_Okay. Okay, okay._

* * *

Deku approaches Mikasa to ask about a temporary team-up when grabbing Eren back from the defectors, which wasn’t nearly as awkward as Deku thought it might have been. They eye each other for a moment, then wordlessly agree to a tentative truce. It seems that they’re both of the same mentality; get Eren back from the crazy pro-destruction-of-the-Human-race people, and _then (duke it out for his affections)_ get to know each other.

Step one; very politely ask permission to mobilize a strike team to retrieve Eren. And Ymir too, they guess. Begrudgingly. At Historia’s insistence.

Step two; kick major ass.

Good plan. Excellent plan, in fact.

They cannot _wait_ to put this plan in action.

* * *

“What do you _mean_ we have to _wait?!_ ” Deku and Mikasa’s voices ring out in an incredulous synchronization. 

“I _mean,_ ” said Hanji, exasperatedly, “that we have to _wait._ We can’t move forward with any operations without the Commander’s approval, and he’s busy trying to keep the Survey Corps from being disbanded by the Interior- oh, shit,” they said, slapping a hand over their mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that.”

“The Survey Corps being _WHAT?!_ ” 

* * *

“Stupid humans,” Deku muttered angrily as he strapped his gear on. “Stupid _politics,_ ”

“What are you doing?” 

Deku jumped at the voice, twisting around to see the unimpressed form of Mikasa leaning against the doorframe.

“Nothing, f-fuck off,” he replied, fixing his hip buckle, stopping when hands covered his, easing them away from the mechanism. He noted absently that his hands were shaking, the twisted mess of the four fingers he’d ruined by using while they were broken at Trost being softly uncurled. He slipped his rough hands into Mikasa’s dainty, calloused ones, breathing unevenly. She leaned forward a little, canting her shoulder and he huffed, recognizing a gesture that she and Eren shared, lurching forward to rest his head on her shoulder.

She grips his hands tightly, drawing her thumbs over his knuckles, not hesitating over the deformed ridges of his right hand. 

“Y-you understand it, d-don’t you?” his pleading voice came, muffled by her shoulder. “I-I can’t just _leave_ him, I-I-I _can’t-_ ”

“I know, I know,” she soothes, “You’re not leaving him. Erwin will be back in two hours. We’ll get him then, and we’ll bring the full might of the Survey Corps with us. We’ll slaughter them, I promise you.”

“But- but-”

“Don’t you know him at all? He would never want you to throw yourself into anything like this. How are your bones? Do you have the strength to face both the Armoured and the Colossal now?”

Deku shifted his head to the side, looking away from Mikasa’s pointed gaze.

“Just wait a little longer, soldier,” she said softly. “Rest, and lie in wait. Job’s not done just yet.”

He swallowed, and started unbuckling his gear.

* * *

They get Eren back, but they lose a lot.

Many Scouts are dead.

Ymir is as good as dead.

The shifters _escape._

And Erwin is incapacitated, and missing an _arm._ Really, if Deku wasn’t completely aware of all the ways that it could have gone worse, he would say it couldn’t have been worse.

But, frankly, damn his connections, and damn his thoughts of _protection_ from the MPs. He’s ninety percent sure they’re gunning for the Survey Corps anyway. Nothing to do now except go down fighting.

All that matters is that at the end of the day, his humans are alive and he is sleeping in Eren’s arms.

* * *

There’s human politics moving around behind the scenes that Deku would like to know about, but _unfortunately_ Erwin has decided to wait to let Levi tell the squad at the last moment, because apparently the remnants of the 104th, Eren, Deku, and Levi are now the Special Operations squad. 

So here they are, holed up in some backwater ruins, and Levi’s telling them that the Royal Government has made unsettling moves towards trying to frame the Scouting Regiment as power-hungry crazy people who’re attempting a coup. On top of that, Erwin, while not, in fact, power-hungry, may actually be crazy because in response to this movement the Commander actually _is_ doing his best to figure out how to overthrow the government.

So they’re gearing up, and they’re preparing to go do some… _negotiation…_ with one Dimo Reeves, a merchant who’s apparently been helping the First Interior Squad, which is the MP’s bastardized less-kickass version of Squad Levi. 

They’re also terrifyingly competent at suppressing technological advancements and little hints of rebellion.

They’re the thieves in the night, the ones who take _freaks_ away to never be seen again.

Ooh, Deku is liking this less and _less_.

* * *

Dimo Reeves, once he realizes just what kind of situation he’s in, is _more_ than happy to help these _kind, honorable_ Scouts out a little. Of course, the savage grins and the easy, _loose_ grips on blades help a lot, a little insinuation of _oops, sorry I almost nicked your jugular with this razor-sharp death dealer that I use to slaughter gigantic cannibals. Hey, now that I think of it, you wouldn’t mind doing us a little favour, would you?_

Some of the 104th is visibly disconcerted by threatening _people_ like this. Of course, this is understandable. They’ve been conditioned into sinking blades into _Titans_ , which is different no matter what resemblance they have to humans. 

Deku, Levi, Eren, and Mikasa have no such compunctions.

But, as they slink out of town with their captured MPs, avoiding the rest of the First Interior Squad with light feet and shadow’s movements, Deku knows that he will be needed for the _conversations_ that will come next.

These kids will need to kill, yes. Such is war. But he won’t make them torture. 

Not when he’s here to do it for them.

* * *

Levi asks him quietly if he would like someone to help. Deku, uncharacteristically serious, shakes his head.

“But,” the sixteen-year-old says slowly, “you might need to know how to do this later. In the coming days, my skills will be valuable, and doing it correctly is an art easiest learned by demonstration. Ask Hanji if she would like to join as well. Knowing how to keep subjects without regeneration alive is important.”

And so the three of them don aprons and gloves, and Deku pulls his little pre-prepared kit out of his pack.

They go inside, and Hanji pulls the door closed with a quiet, ominous _click._

* * *

Deku gets a little creative, does a little acting improvisation. One MP reading off a part of a confession outside the door with a knife to his throat breaks the other’s will, and he spills, only a few nails lost.

Historia Reiss… the rightful Queen of the Walls. 

Now isn’t that interesting. 

But Deku has this nice, secret-filled man right here, and he promised Levi and Hanji an education.

So they wring every last bit of _everything_ out of that man. And as he describes the brutalities he’s committed in the name of _peace,_ of _halcyon_ _times_ _,_ Deku feels less and less inclined to give this man a peaceful death.

So they twist fingers and shatter fine bones, and Deku cheerily points out the specific muscle groups that he’s slicing strips out of, cauterizing the open, weeping gashes as he goes. Levi and Hanji look intrigued as Deku traces the thinnest, thinnest lines of red he can over the soldier’s balls, because his knife is very, very sharp and one wrong move could end their fun too early.

Let this _sinner_ die too early. 

Deku engages Hanji in a lively debate about the merits of pain versus humiliation, while Levi drips sour wine in the man’s pried-open mouth, watching with detached interest as he chokes on the thick sludge oozing down his throat, which is rough from screaming.

Deku decides that humiliation is always a nice tool to have in your arsenal, and, well, he _is_ a consort for more reasons than just the money. So he trails gentle, gentle fingers over the man’s bare chest, and brings crocodile tears to his wide doe eyes. 

“Are you alright, sir?” he asks, a sweet, honeyed tone. The man looks up in teary confusion. “You must be hurting very much,” Deku says, pouting his plush lips. “I can make you feel good, sir,” he purrs in the man’s ear, leaning forward and shifting his hand a little higher on the MP’s thigh. “Would you like that?”

“P-Please,” the man gasps, _(Djel, Djel Sannes is his name,_ Deku’s brain reminds him) “P-lease just let me _die-_ ”

“But Djel,” Deku says, the sixteen-year-old’s toxic green eyes half-lidded. “I can make you feel _good._ ”

Sannes sobs, and shakes his head as best he can.

“Djel, are you tired? Rest a little while, sir,” Deku smiles, his hand inching up Sannes’ thigh, closer to his crotch. He can feel Sannes’ muscles twitching involuntarily, shivering under his cool, bloodsoaked glove. “Lay it all down, sir. Lay it all _down,_ ” he snarls the last bit, and jerks roughly on the man’s limp, bloody dick, not even needing his lightning to tear the member right off. The man’s eyes, which had been sliding closed, fly open and he screams like he’s _never_ screamed before. Blood and piss spew over the floor, decorating Deku’s apron in a grisly arc, and the flesh in Deku's grip hasn't detached fully, little tendrils of what he assumes are nerves and urinal mechanisms trailing from the gory mess of Sannes' crotch, glistening and quivering like tentacles. 

Sannes sobs like a _baby,_ and Deku’s snarl doesn’t move as he leans forward again to hiss in Sannes’ ear, lips touching the rim in a mockery of a kiss. “You tortured and murdered innocent children because your masters commanded you too,” he snarls. “You’re going to die with a dick down your throat like the whining little cocksucker you are. Rest in _hell,_ bitch,” and then he yanks Sannes’ jaw open and shoves the man’s cock into his mouth, using a middle finger to squish into the bloody, torn-off base and push it down far enough that Sannes is choking on the limp, spongy flesh. He watches dispassionately as the man’s face slowly starts to turn blue, and he begins convulsing in the chair, ropes tightening over his wrists and ankles as he bucks at the restraints in a last-ditch effort of escape.

Finally, with one last convulsion, Sannes goes limp.

Deku nods in satisfaction, and then gathers up his tools and leaves, leaving Hanji and Levi to deal with the gory scene he’s left behind.

* * *

Deku sighs, and rolls his shoulders as the door clicks shut behind him, then goes off to find some water. He needs to clean his tools, and wash himself off.

Eren won’t want to share a bedroll with him if he’s covered in someone else’s blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed because writing this was kicking my ass


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren/Deku fluffies, Deku shows off his tattoos, a plan goes wrong, and the previous users of One for All make an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, Deku absolutely has badass tattoos and you cannot stop me.   
> I know it kinda seems like Eren's really OOC but like, really he's just more subdued by Deku's influence and has less rage-blowouts. Next chapter should be the last of AOT.
> 
> ...probably.
> 
> trigger warnings; implied live vivisection, mentioned human experimentation, loss of an eye, apathy, dissociation, implied torture
> 
> (Deku needs so much therapy.)

A plan has been created. Deku, as is natural, hates it. He also hates that Eren found some grey in his shoulder-length green hair this morning.

Fuck, he’s only sixteen. He’s got some itching notion that even though all the people around him are at war, even the younger ones, sixteen-year-olds aren’t supposed to be soldiers.

But, honestly, the grey doesn’t really surprise him. Of course, he’d had his moment of shock and horror, but he’d laughed it off quickly, waving his hand and babbling something about catching up to Levi, whose undercut is already edging with white despite the fact that he’s only in his early thirties. Fuck, he needs a distraction.

“Did… did I ever explain my tattoos to you?” he’d asked quickly. Eren raised an eyebrow, but accepted the blatant subject change.

“No, you didn’t,” he said, face edged with curiosity. “Will you?”

Deku smiled quickly, _(gratefully)_ and pulled around to twist his shirt up and off, turning his midsection to edge Eren’s hand down to his hip, where it brushed against the large inked design, the bottom of which was just covered by his waistband and the top just touched the middle of his ribcage. 

“It’s very pretty,” Eren said, fingertips lightly tracing the lines, and it really was. Deku had lucked out. The picture was a sprawling wreath of vines surrounding a stone tower, with a dagger lightly twined with honeysuckle flowers delicately positioned in the center, edges peeking out past the limits of the vines.

“It’s from my gang,” Deku said shyly. “The tower and vines are the base of all the designs, the dagger represents assassination-cum-interrogation and the honeysuckle is my work as a consort, as well as a mark of my viewing the work I did as a delicate art. The intricacy of the vines represents my high standing. The original mark is here,” he said, turning and lifting up his hair to expose the nape of his neck, which was adorned with a simple black-inked symbol. “It was inked when I first joined, and it’s an old character with lost meanings, but the general connotation is death,”  _ (kanji _ , something long-buried whispers _ )  _ “It was meant as a constant reminder of what I would face if I betrayed them. The prettier one,” he said with a wry grin, “I got when I had proven I could handle myself.”

Eren studied the mark on Deku’s neck, simple black ink standing out sharply on the pale, untanned skin that was covered by his hair.

“Do you keep this one covered for a reason?” he questioned.

“Well, once I got my vines, it was either cover it or burn it off,” Deku said. “You couldn’t have both an initiation mark and a rank mark, the two meanings clash. But I wasn’t really comfortable with hot things near my neck, so I just grew my hair out and now I tie it half-back, so it stays out of my face and covers a gang mark,” he grinned. “They  _ are _ generally frowned upon in high society, and everyone  _ knows  _ that if you’ve got one burned off then there’s a better one on you somewhere.”

“Scandalous,” Eren said, with a quick grin, before wriggling over to press his chest against Deku’s back, twining his arms over Deku’s torso, fingers edging lightly over the rib tattoo as he snuffled in Deku’s loose hair. Deku smiled, and melted back into his embrace, tilting his head back and baring his neck for Eren to move his face over, nuzzling into the junction of Deku’s throat  _ (in a quiet, shy show of trust that still took Eren’s breath away). _

This was Deku’s favorite time, the quiet, grey mornings when it was just the two of them and sleep still hung over the rest of the camp. Deku had always woken early, for as long as he can remember  _ (he cleaned the beach in the morning, ten long months before he could scream his triumph to the sky, and it was so, so worth it-) _ and once he met Eren and their days started to fill with the war, Eren too woke early and the crisp, quiet air became a time for just the two of them to bask in each other's presence, to fill up on something easy before facing the real world.

But, of course, the real world still had to be faced.

“Hey, Eren-” Sasha rounded the corner, instantly screeching when she saw the rather compromising position the two were in. The two jumped, and scrambled apart as her drawn-out scream brought people running. 

“What, what is- oh.” Armin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he walked closer. “Eren, are you two terrorizing people with public displays of affection again?”

“No!” Eren screeched, face red. “We- we were just  _ sitting here _ , and she came running around like some  _ crazy person  _ and- and then there was  _ screaming- _ ” 

“Sasha,” Armin asked, turning to the red-faced girl who wasn’t bothering to hide her gaping, “were you not aware that the two of them are…” his face scrunched as he searched for proper words, “...involved?”

Sasha gibbered, and rounded on Armin with wide eyes. “B-but- but he’s the  _ Angel, _ and Eren’s- Eren’s-”

“Eren is _what,_ exactly?” came Deku’s voice, in that aggressively polite way of his, with eyes colder than steel.

“Uh, n-nothing Mr. Angel, sir! N-nothing at-”

“Eren is  _ nothing,  _ is perhaps what you are trying to say, Brause?”

“N-NO! I-I meant that  _ it’s _ nothing, M-Mr. Angel sir!”

“Eren is an  _ it? _ ”

“N-NO!” Sasha wailed, “Oh, I’m so  _ sorry _ Mr. Angel sir-”

Deku’s eyes softened. “Just Deku is fine, Brause. We’re on the same side, after all, and we eat the same rations. You needn’t apologize, I understand.”

Sasha stopped, freezing in her sobbing rictus, and slowly straightened and sniffled, rubbing her face with the edge of her tunic. “Y-yes, Mr. Deku sir.”

Deku hardly blinked. “Excellent. I suppose we’d all best be moving along with our mornings, then.”

Sasha blushed bright red, and meandered off, muttering about _“they’re both scary and intense, maybe it’s a more likely match than I thought,”_ which had both Deku and Eren stifling snickers. Armin squinted at them, and waited for Eren to compose himself and assume a proper groveling expression. 

“She’s a good mask,” Deku murmured, perking Eren’s attention. “Appropriately over-the-top, so that no one notices the calculations she can make with the information they give her thinking she’s an airhead. Much like what Hanji does.”

Eren nods absently, and returns his attention to Armin’s lecture about PDA while Deku goes off to find his shirt.

* * *

The plan, as Deku mentioned earlier, involved the fake kidnapping of Historia, Eren,  _ and _ Deku. It would be a good plan if this was a perfect world and nothing ever went wrong, but unfortunately the world is horrible and so there are so many ways for this to go wrong that Deku is tempted to veto it right off the bat.

Helpfully, Levi  _ also  _ hates the plan, because Levi had a shit life and understands not wanting to make one’s shit life even shittier. Thank you, Levi.

_ Un _ helpfully, Levi’s vote doesn’t matter much because they  _ need _ Rod Reiss to crown Historia as Queen and use her as a puppet to control the government. (Is this coup method ethical?  _ Probably not _ . Will they all die if it doesn’t happen?  _ Probably _ . Ergo;  _ sorry Historia _ .)

So, this  _ dumb, shitty plan  _ is happening. Deku  _ hates _ it. He argues about not including Eren for a very, very long time, but unfortunately the bottom line is that all three of them will be needed. 

So, Deku is knocked unconscious, because the story that he was given a sleeping agent is the only thing that will convince the MPs that he’s actually been subdued, so his world goes black, and his last sight is Eren’s worried eyes.

* * *

Deku wakes up cuffed to a chair with what is,  _ (he determines as he shifts around a bit), _ the heaviest chains he has ever had the pleasure of being locked in. The stone room he’s in is dark, and he can feel the unique dampness that comes from being underground permeating like a fog. 

Deku’s head lolls to the side, and he takes in the sight of how his wrists have been well and truly shackled, in a way that would be very difficult indeed for him to get out of without outright tearing his hands off.

Deku decides that tearing his hands off is that last last _last_ resort. He lets his eyes drift a little further down and sees his ankles shackled similarly.

He’s not certain he could run fast enough to get out with ripped-off feet stumps.

“Oh, ssshit,” he slurs, and blinks heavily.

A malevolent chuckle fills the room. Deku is apprehensive, and is not liking the picture that this is painting.

“Yes,” a figure says, stepping out of the shadows  _ (cliche! _ a little part of his brain screams. Deku is proud of already having the distinct advantage of being un-cliche.) “You, Deku No-Surname, have a very interesting history,” the man says, turning to Deku with glittering eyes. “The  _ only _ formal record of your existence is a singular line in the census taken from those coming in as refugees from Shiganshina. No records of existence in previous censuses. No other residents of Shiganshina who can confidently say that they knew you. No parents. No  _ surname. _ No  _ papers.  _ So, tell me, Deku,” he smirked, “if that is even your name,  _ where _ did you come from?”

Deku blinks, and considers his options. He’s been on the receiving end of an interrogation, of course, he’s got two missing toes and fragile, discolored fingernails to prove it, but that was more of a training exercise than anything, and not done with intent to permanently disable his combat capabilities. The MPs, he thought, would probably not be so kind unless they thought that he might work with them in the future.

_ (He can’t take the risk, if he’s crippled and maimed for the coming days he won’t be able to do anything for Eren, he’ll be  _ **_useless-_ ** _ ) _

“Okay,” Deku replies. The MP twitches a little, probably expecting lots of screaming and denials of cooperation. “I woke up on that boat with no memories. When the Garrison asked for a name, Deku was the first thing that came to me. I have no idea what my real name is or where I really came from. I always assumed Shiganshina, but,” he shrugged as best he could while bound, “I guess that’s not true. Which,” he frowned, “is odd. Where else would I be from?”

The man frowned. “You’re lying.”

“I’m actually not,” Deku offered. “I’d really like to get this over with, and the truth isn’t very monumental anyway. I never wondered. I always figured I’d hit my head in the evacuation and lost all my memories of home. I felt pretty guilty about it, but it seems logical. Occam’s Razor, yeah?”

The MP straightened. “What is this ‘Occam’s Razor’ you speak of?”

“It’s- wait-” Deku’s face blanked. “I- I have no idea. I’ve been doing that lately. Remembering little things completely out of context. It’s kind of annoying, actually. Just the other day I called Captain Levi ‘Aizawa-sensei’. It was really weird. I don’t  _ know  _ anyone named Aizawa.”

The MP’s face twisted, and he leaned forward. “Have you considered the idea that perhaps you are from beyond the Walls?”

“Uh, no?” Deku said, face scrunched. “Not really. That sounds pretty implausible. Anyways, now that I’ve answered your questions, do you think you could let me go? Quickly, if you don’t mind?”

“Why, got somewhere to be?” the man leered. Deku barely blinked.

“Uh-huh. Out, please?”

“Unfortunately for you,” the man sneered, “We have some more questions. Mainly of the  _ scientific  _ variety. But don’t worry, we can answer those without your cooperation required.”

Deku’s eyes widened, and he tried to lunge forward but was stopped by the chains. He hissed, and snapped at the MP’s bemused expression. 

“Mm, a firecracker,” the MP said absently. “Yes, sedate him now, please.”

Deku yowled, but he couldn’t pull himself out without ripping off his limbs as well. Then he felt a syringe plunge into his neck, and he went limp as the world turned black.

* * *

He was drifting, disconnected from his body ( _ strapped down to a metal table, _ he noted absently) and the pain that was coursing through it as they took him apart. He felt as if he was watching from a position standing next to one of the masked and gloved scientists as they cut little lines on his one unmangled hand just to watch him bleed. 

Then, he heard the whispers, and turned around, imaginary hands in his imaginary pockets. He wasn’t in a mood to fight.

Seven figures stood there, watching him with unabashed curiosity. The group of silhouettes stared at his lax form in sadness and what might have been pity.

“Nine?” one of the figures asked, stepping forward.

“Yes, that’s me,” Nine answered easily, and wondered why that title seemed to feel so  _ right. _

“Are you…?”

“Dying?” Nine finished, glancing back towards the table his physical form was strapped to. “I think so. I think I ought to be concerned,” he said, frowning mildly. “But I just can’t seem to work up much emotion at the moment.”

The figure who had spoken earlier stepped closer, and Nine’s eyes tracked her lazily.

“I’m Seven,” the _(woman?)_ cautiously introduced. Nine nodded. That made perfect sense, for some inexplicable reason. “Do you know why we’re here? We… weren’t, before.”

“Did I drag you from Beyond?” Nine asked, a little concerned. That seemed terribly impolite. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I meant to. It’s because I’m dying, probably.”

Seven and Nine nod together. 

“We could help you, I think,” another figure said slowly. “I’m the First. If We all help, I think We could get you out of here. I’ve seen what  _ They _ can do to  _ Us. _ We wouldn’t wish that on you,” First says firmly, and two other figures nod with him.

“But even if I did get out,” Nine said, face slightly scrunched, “I don’t think I’d be going anywhere. See?” he said, and nodded his head over to the table. The eight of them look together, and watch as one of the scientists takes a scalpel to one of Nine’s lovely green eyes, tracing around the edge until the connections were thoroughly severed, and then they all collectively wince as the scientist uses a pair of tongs to lift the eye out of Nine’s head with a sadistic smile, carrying it away to pop it into a little jar, where it floats in what Nine assumes is formaldehyde. An assistant scurries up behind him and uses a little match to cauterize the inside of the socket, and the hiss of burning flesh would have been unbearably pungent had they not all been incorporeal.

The seven figures look back at Nine, who is covering his own left eye with a disgruntled expression. A silhouette steps forward and introduces themself as Three, then produces an eyepatch with a flourish.

“It’s my own,” Three says. “I lost my left eye in a massive Quirk riot. But I suppose since I’m Beyond, you might as well have it.”

Nine smiles, and affixes the eyepatch over his face, offering gratitude to Three. Seven points out how Nine is wearing his hair similar to how Seven used to, and she compliments his good choices in style. Nine giggles, and sheepishly rubs the gang mark that his hair covers, absently noting to himself that he has found another little grey streak in the green.

First suggests they return to the topic at hand, and they all stop chatting for a moment to think.

“I dunno,” Nine says idly. “I mean, I can’t really think of many things that I have to go back to.”

“Nah, kiddo,” Seven says absently. “You’ll have your Berserker for a little while longer, I should think, and I know Eight’s been missing you something fierce.”

“Eight?” Nine asks. “I don’t remember them.”

“You will, when you get back,” Three says. Nine nods.

“I vote We get out,” a new figure says. “I’m Second, and I lived during the rise of Quirks. I’ve seen this kind of thing. Human experimentation is a pretty shitty way to die.”

Nine inclines his head. “I suppose there is that,” he concedes. “But if We’re going to do anything, We need to do it soon,” he says, and looks pointedly at where the scientists appear to be getting ready to open up Nine’s body for a live vivisection.

“Right then,” First says. “How do We do this, do you think?”

“Plus ultra, I suppose,” Nine says offhandedly. “Here, let’s get in a circle or something. Isn’t that what people usually do?”

“Might as well,” Three says, and steps forward to link hands with both Second and Four. They all go around, until Nine is clasping hands with First and Seven.

“We can draw on Eight as well,” Seven adds. “Nine and I will, we’re closest.”

And they all nod.

“Alright, then,” Four says. “One for All,”  _ -his lips twist into a wry grin- _ “Plus Ultra.”

And there is  _ l i g h t n i n g. _

* * *

Deku’s eye snaps open, a brilliant glowing green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seven is Shimura Nana, first is AFO's brother (the original recipient of OFA) eight is All Might
> 
> so basically Deku freaked out so much that he passed the line straight back into calm and managed to enter OFA's headspace while dissociating from his own dissection, then had metaphorical conversations with OFA's shades and used it to unlock enough of OFA to break out of the sedation and eventually escape. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed cause y'all know I live to serve the people


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One for All pulls a reckoning, Deku gains a Quirk, we have a sneaky peek-y at the BNHA universe, and Eren proteccs, attaccs, but most importantly evaluates his significant other’s mental state stats.
> 
> Spoiler alert; they ain’t good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have decided that One for All is a feral bastard with a penchant for rage, and we follow this with a tasteful evaluation of Deku’s sad physical/mental state.
> 
> tw; blood and gore, implied self-mutilation, self-hatred, dismemberment (do fingers count?), mass killings, implied/referenced torture, implied/referenced dubcon, implied/referenced underage sex, implied/referenced prostitution
> 
> otherwise known as "i am unkind to the sunshine children"

The time after that was a blur. Nine-Deku-Nine- **De-** _ (young midoriya?) _ **-ku** is resting for a minute, letting Them do as They please to get Us out of the MP’s lab area. He’s getting a faint impression of  _ screaming-terror-Angel-of-Death-Death-DEATH  _ but the phantom pain of a faceless figure plucking the eyeball from his skull and incinerating the socket still lingers on him, and when he pays it attention it turns to a bone-deep knife of fury. 

So he’ll float in this dark water place, a little inlet in the chaos of his mind, and take a minute to reorder his body. He can feel it breaking and rebuilding as They use him, but it’s a distant ache that’s easily ignored. He turns his attention back to the matter at hand- the eyepatch that Three has given him.

A manifestation of the power that Three has said he could borrow, since Three will be Beyond and have no use for it.

From what Ni-De- _ (young midoriya?) _ -ku-ne can tell, it’s the ability to weave things into existence. Which of course, sounds fantastic, but there are significant drawbacks to accompany this near unlimited power. A heavy dose of concentration is required, because the Manifestations are created from the barest building blocks of matter and must be woven together by hand, so whatever he wishes to Manifest, it will not be a quick process at all, and he will have to be intimately acquainted with its chemical and physical structures.

It would appear that after Three lost their eye, the first thing they Manifested was this very eyepatch that Ni-De- _ (young midoriya, is that you?) _ -ku-ne holds now. From what he can tell, all he has to do if he wishes for this power is get acquainted with this one now, so that as soon as They are finished with the Body, he can first Manifest a construct exactly like this one, as a symbolic passing of power.

There’s a lot of symbolism involved.  _ (A distant thought in the back of Deku’s mind thinks that it appears he has accidentally joined a cult, except he  _ **_is_ ** _ the cult. Deku is appropriately amused.) _

He runs his fingers over the patch and hums thoughtfully. It’s made of some odd kind of leather, grey with a silvery sheen when the light hits it just right. There’s a clip-buckle that fixes under the ear, meant so he can twist it tighter if he needs to.

He thinks he’ll take it.

But he can sense that Their reign of  _ blood-death-SCREAM-SNAP-CRUNCH  _ isn’t quite finished yet. The pound of flesh has yet to be taken. So They keep taking.

_ please-please-please-have-MERCY- _ **_CRUNCH-_ ** _ sliiide- _ **_squelch_ ** _ -stop. _

_ Hah-hah-haaaaa… _

And with a whisper of content, They slip away and Nine- **Deku** shifts back into place. 

When he comes to, his depth perception is all off, but he blinks and his remaining eye adjusts. He doesn’t stop to look around, but knows the first thing he needs to do is Manifest Three’s power before he forgets how. With a shiver, he holds out his hands and  _ calls _ , in a way he can’t explain. Like reaching for his lightning but off to the side a little, grasping at the twitching threads that writhe beneath the skin of his palms, pulling- _ shaping- _ **_weaving_ ** in just the right way, a familiar movement that makes something in the back of his brain go boneless with delight. 

A soft net of silver light coalesces between his cupped hands, and when Deku narrows his eyes with _intent_ , the kind of look that tells the light to _obey_ , it shivers in something like _(fear)_ and hastens to do as the _(master-_ ** _monster_** _)_ commands. Deku knows _exactly_ what he wants, and so the power cannot disobey. The eyepatch shimmers into existence, and Deku smiles, a cold, slow expression that crawls across his _(bloody)_ features. He bows his head and clips the patch into place, adjusting it a little so it sits comfortably over his face.

It’s then that he gets a good look at his hands.

The cold, crisp facade falls immediately, and all he can do is stare in horror at his hands, then letting his eye drift further up his arms, hands beginning to shake and his breathing speeding up when he catches a whiff of the scent in the air.

_ (Deku is not a squeamish person. He learned to live in this world on the backstreets, the dirty alleyways and the brothels. He’s no stranger to blood and cruelty and gore. He’s slit throats as easily as breathing, and caused unimaginable pain to the scum of Humanity.  _

_ But Deku has never,  _ **_ever_ ** _ , killed a child.) _

The world is painted red.

Walls, ceilings, _(Deku unconsciously licks his lips and finds little chunks of skin stuck in his teeth)_ b o d i e s.

This was obviously a place where a squad of First Interior MPs were stationed, and apparently they liked to keep their work close to home.

Deku staggers out through a convenient door that leads out to a courtyard. What appears to be the center of a small compound  _ (the Reiss estate, if Deku is reading these emblems right) _ is utterly silent.

The night sky above is dark and clouded over, but when the wind shifts for a moment, trees rustle and clouds part, throwing the full moon’s light over the courtyard.

Scarlet spatters gleam silver.

Deku’s red- _ sticky _ -gloves shine to match, catching light in the way that only tools of destruction can.

_This was me._ Deku thinks quietly. _I did this. These are humans._

He casts a glance over the ravaged corpses, and notes a few.

_ I killed children. _

He tips his head back, letting his mouth fall open with a shuddering  _ (copper-tasting)  _ breath and his gore-covered face is exposed to the crisp night air, tear tracks cutting through the viscera. 

_ I’m the Angel of Death. _

_. . . _

_ I’m a m̵̲̜̘̫̄͐̌͊̆̄̑̈́͗̿͘̚o̵͕̮̼͊́͌̈́̽̽̄͛̈́̃́͝n̴̛̙̹̮͛́͌̽̒̄̾͑͌̎͘̕͠ṡ̸̥̳͛̑͊̐̊̊̈͐̂̈́͜͠͝tḙ̴͕̒̓̇͂̽̾̓͑̎̕r̴̨̼̜̘̻̂̃̔͆. _

~~_ (this is a day for firsts) _ ~~

* * *

He hears the commotion going on outside, lots of screaming and the steam of a Titan transformation wafting on the air. Deku staggers outside with a blank gaze, topless and barefoot. His scarlet-drenched form allows him to conveniently ignore the various surgical wounds that had been aggravated by his blind rampage, leaking sluggish blood and leaving sticky footprints behind him. 

A cry goes up from the group gathered outside at Deku’s abrupt appearance, Eren rushing forward and taking Deku up in his arms frantically, ignoring the mess and Deku’s trembling. As he slowly nosed at Eren’s throat, the faint scent of  _ copper-smoke-home  _ triggered something in his head that had Deku slowly going limp in Eren’s crushing embrace, knees buckling with a slight whimper. Eren doesn’t hesitate to sweep the shorter man into a bridal carry and tuck him into his chest, tightening his hold on Deku and pulling his lips back in an animalistic snarl when another soldier approaches. 

Deku’s vision is flickering, and the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins is rapidly disappearing in the wake of Eren’s firm hold on him. He trusts Berserker to keep him safe  _ (and the others safe from him) _ and so he unceremoniously slips into sleep, even as frantic voices rise around him.

_ He’s so tired. _

* * *

Toshinori Yagi is not having a very good day. In fact, as of recently, good days for Toshinori Yagi have been in short supply. At USJ, it wasn’t until after the Noumu had been defeated and the injured teachers rushed to the hospital that anyone realized Midoriya was missing. 

The immediate assumption had been that he was injured somewhere and unable to come find the rest of them  _ (no one wanted to consider the alternative)  _ but after every inch of the facility had been scoured it was clear. Midoriya had been warped elsewhere, most likely in the initial attack. 

_ (Everyone was very careful to avoid mentioning the prospect of Midoriya being the UA Traitor within All Might’s earshot. Everyone could see that the man was waffling between running out to scour the whole earth with his bare hands searching for the boy or falling into an extreme depression, and insinuating that the child had been a villain in disguise sounded like an excellent way to get punched into the stratosphere.) _

Midoriya Inko was a  _ complete _ wreck, and had been terrorizing Nedzu almost daily asking for news, for updates on the investigation. She might not have been very close to her son, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.

Class 1-A was… quiet, in a way that teenagers didn’t feel right being. There was a sort of perpetual dread hanging in the air, and when some well-meaning student put lilies on Midoriya’s desk in homeroom, Bakugou had a  _ satanic _ breakdown, proceeding to explode the flowers, the desk, and a good portion of the floor beneath it screaming about how  _ “that shitty Deku is too damn stubborn to die, and the next one of you extras who talks like he’s dead is getting murdered!” _ The class was appropriately threatened, and conversations around Bakugou were careful dances around verbal landmines.

The Sports Festival saw the stoic second-place of Todoroki Shouto and the furious first-placer Bakugou Katsuki, third going to one Shinsou Hitoshi, who had effortlessly dominated the one-on-ones until somebody finally wised up and stopped responding to his quips. 

When Shinsou walked into Class 1-A for the first time after Aizawa introduced him as the new student, he saw the heart-stopping terror in many of their faces before Aizawa added that he was replacing Mineta.  _ (Shinsou had bitterly chalked it up to a response to his Quirk, but after a while he watched and saw a curious hole in the classroom dynamics, then remembered the rumors of the disappearance of a student, the hushed-up tale never released to the media but no-doubt true from what he could see.  _

_ He learned that the boy’s name was Midoriya, and that he was the sweetest, most nervous sunshine child to ever grace Japan with his presence, with a self-destructive Quirk to match.  _

_ He wondered if he would ever meet ‘Midoriya’, or if the boy would remain a story whispered in dark corners.) _

The investigation carried on, despite there being absolutely zero leads other than ‘Kurogiri’ and his Warp Quirk.

_ (When Tsukauchi called Toshinori up, Toshinori had feared the worst. That they’d found his boy but that it had been too late, too late. _

_ What they had found was so, so much worse.) _

Toshinori held it together on the train, and walking down the street. He waited until he’d slipped into his apartment and the key had clicked in the lock to sink to his knees and shake the air with wracking sobs.

All for One was alive. Toshinori had  _ failed. _

All for One likely knew that young Midoriya had One for All. Toshinori had  _ failed. _

All for One  _ had Midoriya. _

Toshinori.

Had.

_ Failed _ .

* * *

Eren sat at the hospital bed, Deku’s mangled hand gripped tightly in his tan, uncalloused fingers.

Deku was so pale. 

The battles at Rod Reiss’ estate had drained all of them, but the hardest part had been leaving Deku with the medics to go and assist the others in their slaughter. Because the moment he’d lain eyes on Deku’s broken figure staggering out of the gates, the surging instinct to  _ protect-protect-get-mine-safe-mine-safe-MINE  _ had been overwhelming.

He sighed, and looked back to Deku’s figure to take it all in again. They’d taken his eye, the bastards, and his long, beautiful hair had been jaggedly cut to expose his neck. Once the medics had taken care of the various surgical incisions he had sported and disinfected the cauterized eye socket  _ (and the pinkie finger on his left hand, which had been jaggedly ripped off by what looked alarmingly like teeth marks. They’d cauterized the stump and disinfected that too, but Eren just couldn’t stop staring) _ a shy Scout with some experience cutting hair had come forward and said that they could clean up his hair, make it look a little less hobo-like. Not in that many words, of course, but the general spirit was the same.

The Scout had looked at Eren when she’d offered, which he’d been surprised by for a moment before remembering  _ oh yeah, I’m the closest thing to family that he has. _

That thought had put a damper on the moment.

But Eren shook it off and decided that since the tattoo on Deku’s neck was already exposed by the ugly, rushed job that the MPs had done they might as well clean it up, so he gave the Scout a go-ahead, asking that she do an undercut to match Levi’s.

Unexpectedly, when they were done, he nodded, because the style suited Deku. Longer-ish hair tied back into a little top-knot, which the bottom half buzzed and his nape tattoo on full display, the one he’d said meant ‘death’.

Fitting, considering his title. 

Eren shook himself, leaning back with a bit of a shudder. 

They’d all gone inside the compound after the battle, both to retrieve Deku’s things and interrogate the officers there.

They were not expecting there to be no officers to interrogate, or anyone at all. It was the carnage that greeted them. Blood was _everywhere,_ blood and viscera and long ropes of intestines ripped out and strung around necks. Bodies _demolished_ , craters in torsos that spoke gory tales of repeated bludgeons, ribs snapped and protruding like raised hands praying for mercy.

There was no mercy.

Servants that had worked the estate, drawn out into corridors by the sounds of the massacre and slaughtered where they stood, those with intact faces twisted in terror even beyond death.

There were children’s bodies, whose deaths it seemed had at least been quick, a cleanly snapped neck and dull, staring eyes in every bed.

The Angel of Death doing His good work, and none were spared from His rage.

They had returned to the Scout’s encampment with blank faces and imperceptibly trembling hands. Eren had sequestered himself away with Deku’s hospital bed, relegating himself to the position of a steady watchman.

He had always known something was broken in Deku.

Even before his terrifying, eye-opening conversation about  _ us  _ and  _ them _ , there had always been something a little  _ off _ about the green-haired Scout.

It was only now that Eren could have a moment to sit and take stock of Deku.

Two missing toes on his right foot, torture. Discolored fingernails, torture. Various skin-scars, regular slashes and stabbings, from fighting the general ongoing battle for survival that had been his life for the past four years or so. Missing pinkie finger on his left hand, torture or self-mutilation, they couldn’t tell. His horribly mangled right hand, the bones twisted from fighting all of the Trost battles with broken fingers that never healed right. He had to bind those fingers, Eren knew, he’d seen it, how he had to use a leather cord and tie his hands into the correct positions on his blades for battle because unexpected cramps and loss of function at the wrong time could kill, but as long as his wrist was functional and he could still swing a sword then Deku would never give it up. 

_ Job’s not done, soldier, _ he’d say with a rictus grin before diving into the fray and leaving chaos in his wake.

Nose crooked from a couple unhealed breaks, a weak knee that in a fight he would guard with a vengeance  _ (but he’s quietly confessed in the dead of night that he’d broken it falling out of a tree and it had never healed right, and they’d snickered together at the sheer absurd normalness of it) _ , a nick in the top of his right ear where the tip had been sliced right off from a near miss in a knife fight, giving it an almost elvish point. Torn-up knuckles from punching just about everything in the Walls. The beautiful, intricate rib tattoo and the stark neck inking, the gouged-out left eye, and, cherry on top, the white streaks in his deep green hair that seemed to have multiplied exponentially since he’d last seen his Deku.

All hard edges and sharp wit, but for Eren Deku was  _ tired. _ He didn’t bother with the soldier’s stance and the fanged grin, the defenses weren’t needed. Deku kept the world at an arm’s length, but the few that he allowed himself near could see just how broken-down he really was. Eren knew full-well that sometimes Deku would come awake in the night with a strangled gasp, would clutch at Eren’s hands until his shifter-bones creaked, and slowly slip back to sleep once he’d convinced himself that  _ it was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. _

His features were smoothed in sleep a little, and the odd silvery eyepatch he’d arrived with covered the gaping hole of his left eye socket. Eren had always known, he thinks, that Deku was a little broken. Years of torturing and selling yourself for others’ pleasure, killing and watching friends killed, maiming and being maimed will do that to you. Deku’s life after the Fall of Shiganshina had been a vicious cycle of  _ hurt-be-hurt _ , but Eren couldn’t bring himself to regret any of it, because he’s selfish. It all brought Deku to Eren in the end.

_ (Eren keeps vigil by the Angel’s limp form in the hospital bed, and determinedly avoids whispering three sets of three words that he knows would break Deku all over again. _

_ I’ll stay here, stay with me, I love you-) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yup, so that happened. I have a very dramatic confession planned as well as Deku’s return to BNHA, which should be no more than three chapters away.
> 
> ...probably.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren/Deku fluffies and angst, new tattoo, and Historia's coronation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pet names!! Haschen= rabbit/bunny, German term of endearment according to Google. Fanon says that the language spoken in the Walls is some dialect of German, so I'm just going to stick with that. Ere-kun= nickname with an unconscious Japanese honorific that apparently can be used for significant others? Dunno, I just figured they should have some sort of nicknames for eachother.
> 
> tw; depression, chronic pain, aftermath of torture, suicidal thoughts, s&m undertones, mentions of slut shaming, unhealthy coping mechanisms, alcohol

Deku wakes just in time for the coronation politics to begin, and promptly wishes he’d stayed asleep. It seemed that news of his wild rampage had spread through the Scouts, insidious little whispers that spoke of a savage massacre. 

Exactly the sort of trust-ruining thing he’s been  _ trying  _ to avoid ever since Trost. His new appearance didn’t exactly help either, what with the white in his hair and the gauntness of his cheeks making him look older than his sixteen years. The 104th and the inner circle of Levi, Hanji and Erwin seemed unaffected, but there was no telling with those three. Mikasa, apparently, would follow Eren to the ends of the earth and that extended to include Deku’s company, which he was strangely touched by.

_ I mean, I did sob on her shoulder when Eren was taken, but that’s neither here nor there. _

Eren was a rock, which Deku honestly needed. There were plenty of nights when the only thing Deku sees when he closes his eyes is the wrong angles on the necks of children sleeping in their beds, vertebrae sticking out of skin and gleaming bone-white in the light. Those nights, all he can do is burrow into Eren’s waiting arms and curl to the side, not wanting to look into worried blue eyes and see them blank and lifeless.

He was practicing with the ODM gear more than ever, because even if he was a natural and even if he did have his lightning to fall back on, it wouldn’t mean anything if he couldn’t accurately judge distances. The loss of a whole half of his vision threw him off quite a bit, but he didn’t want to go back in the field until he was  _ certain _ that he’d be able to handle himself. 

So he ran the course back and forth until he could have done the whole thing blindfolded, and then he went out into the nearest town to make sure that his urban combat was up to scratch. No bladework yet, of course, he knew when he was ready and when he wasn’t, but omni-directional movement was more than just the bladework. His first coherent worry about the loss of his eye was that with it he would lose the amazing feeling of  _ freedom _ that came with ODM gear, the twist and the burn that climaxed into swooping dives through the air. Losing half his sight was a problem, surely, but the longer he practiced the quicker he would adapt. 

The process was similar with his blades. His right hand already had to be bound in place for him to accurately wield a blade there. Four of his fingers on that hand were completely mangled, a result of his overuse of them while they were broken at Trost. He already had chronic pain in them, but inopportune cramps and sudden loss of use could kill him in a fight. The loss of his pinkie on the other hand was troublesome too, especially since he’d been pretty much totally reliant on that hand since Trost. 

He’d taken to running a little of his lightning through his body pretty much all the time, just to keep himself functional. Not enough to be visible, mind you, but enough that he didn’t feel like he was about to fall apart from the aches and pains. The lightning rattling his bones when he overused it was probably the cause of much of his pain, now that he thought about it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was like a drug, staving off the pains for his body to deal with while he slept. When he woke, his whole body would be locked up, and Eren would have to ease him up enough for him to catch his breath before spreading his lightning through his blood like dipping into a warm bath.

Except he was practically freezing when he went into the warm bath, so it was just as bad in the other direction anyway.

Eren kept him sane, really. The mornings when he opened his eyes and couldn’t move, Eren would talk to him quietly and run shifter-warm hands over his stiff joints, shushing his pained whimpers and brushing fluffy hair out of his eyes when he couldn’t get his fingers to cooperate, twisting his hair up into its little top-knot with a complicated flourish that his hands just couldn’t do.

It  _ frustrated  _ him, in a way that few things really did, that he needed help for simple things like tying his hair back and lashing his boots. It made him feel  _ helpless _ in a way he never really had been. He was used to relying on himself for anything and everything, and having someone by his side who didn’t mind helping out the  _ cripple _ was… odd, in a good way.

“I’m sorry,” he would whisper, sitting up in bed while Eren massaged warmth into his fingers, the morning light grey in their shared quarters. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you,” he would say, turning his head away so that his fluffy bangs hid his eye from view. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,  _ Häschen, _ ” Eren would respond, lifting Deku’s mangled hand up to his mouth to press a kiss against his knuckles, leaning forward to brush the hair out of his eye at the same time. Deku looked up at his turquoise eyes, then looked away again, drawing the hand missing a finger back to his chest.

“All I know how to do is destroy and be destroyed,” he murmured. “I’m good for nothing but death. You should leave me while you still can-”

Eren put a finger to Deku’s lips, and smiled softly, tracing a pattern up the cheekbone and down to cup his hand on the back of Deku’s neck, drawing him forward so that his forehead was pressed under Eren’s chin as Deku began to shake. Silent tears dripped from Deku’s eye as his chest heaved. 

“I’m a murderer and a torturer,” he would gasp, trying to pull back, but Eren would hold him fast with turquoise eyes shut tight. “I k-killed children in cold blood. I made a living selling myself to s-sleazy assholes so I could s-slit their throats and leave them to bleed out on expensive sheets,” sobs bubbled up his throat as he curled his  _ useless _ hands into claws and tried to pull away from the only good thing in his life, to keep the only good thing in the world away from  _ him- _ “I d-don’t know why I resist it anymore, all I deserve is to be broken, all I deserve is to be hurt, why can’t you just  _ put me down like the scum I am- _ ”

“No! No, Sina-damn it,  _ no, _ Deku. Please,” Eren would beg, running his hand through Deku’s green hair peppered with white, “you have to stop thinking like that. You’re not a burden and you never will be. What if-” his breath caught, “what if we could live like this. Just the two of us,” Eren said, eyes hooded. “What if we just ran and never came back?”

Deku’s sobs subsided, and he sniffled and turned his head to lean into Eren’s chest. “I’d follow you anywhere, Ere-kun. You know that. I told you that when we first properly met,” he murmured, “and I’ll keep saying it until the day I finally die.”

Eren’s arms tightened around him, and the brunet took a shuddering breath. “You’re not allowed to say things like that,  _ Häschen, _ ” he said quietly. “There’s no  _ finally. _ You understand, yes?”

“Mn,” Deku mumbled sleepily, burrowing deeper into Eren’s warm embrace. The Berserker closed his eyes in exhaustion, and started rubbing movement back into Deku’s pliant hand. He knew that they’d be having this conversation again the next morning.

* * *

“Hey,” Eren said, while they were packing up gear from their latest sparring session. “What if we got you another tattoo?”

“Huh?” Deku asked absentmindedly, tucking away his blades. “What for?”

“Y’know, to help with your, uhm, ‘useless’ mindset. I think I know something that could help? If you’re up for it?”

Deku perked up, turning to give Eren his attention. “I’m listening.”

“So, you don’t have anything on your back, right? And that’s where you fit with me, right? Like, this is how we fit,” Eren explained, pulling Deku’s back against his front and resting his chin over Deku’s shoulder, winding his arms around Deku’s waist and nosing at Deku’s throat. Deku smothered a giggle, and leaned back into Eren’s embrace.

“That’s right,” he said, still a little confused. “What do you have in mind?”

* * *

The two of them walked out of the local tattoo artist’s loft hand-in-hand, the top half of Deku’s back throbbing, but in a good way. 

That night in their room, Eren unwraps Deku’s bandages with a careful hand, and daubs water on the stylized letters inked over the top half of Deku’s back, stark black with turquoise embellishments, pressing feather-light kisses to each one.

_ P R O P E R T Y - O F - E R E N - J A E G E R _

“There,” he whispered with a raspy voice. “You wouldn’t take anything of mine away from me, would you,  _ Häschen _ ? Wouldn’t let anything of mine be hurt?”

“No, Ere-kun,” Deku whispered back, a slight smile on his face.

“Nothing that belongs to  _ me _ can be broken, right,  _ Häschen _ ? Anything of  _ mine  _ is gorgeous, something to be cherished and hoarded away, yes?”

“Yes, Ere-kun.”

“Just because I let something of mine go out and be around anyone but _me_ doesn’t mean that they’re not something I want back at the end of the day, pristine and just as beautiful as they were when they left. Do you understand, _Häschen_?”

“Yes, Ere-kun, always.”

Eren leaned forward to brush his lips against Deku’s ear, putting a slight pressure on the letters engraved into Deku’s skin and psyche. “You’re  _ mine, _ Deku, with everything that it entails. Do you understand?”

Deku’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he leaned back into Eren’s embrace with nary a whimper, even as his back throbbed with painful promise. “Yours, Eren. Yours, always, til the day I finally die.”

“ _No,_ ” Eren growled, and he yanked Deku back further, wrapping his arms around Deku’s waist with a possessive snarl. “There is no _finally,_ Deku. You’re not allowed to die until _I_ say you can. You’re _mine,_ Deku, you just agreed to that. And _no one_ takes what’s mine but _me._ Do you understand?”

Deku hung his head. “Yes, Eren,” he rasped, blinking away the beginnings of tears. 

Eren hummed, nosing at Deku’s throat. “Don’t cry,  _ Häschen.  _ You’ll learn, I’m sure. Who do you belong to?”

“Property of Eren Jaeger,” Deku whispered.

“Again,” Eren murmured.

“Property of Eren Jaeger.”

“And are Eren’s things allowed to die without his say-so?”

“No,” Deku breathed. “Property of Eren Jaeger.”

“That’s right,” Eren purred, nibbling lightly on the side of Deku’s throat, who arched without prompting, needy little noises escaping from his mouth. “Property of Eren Jaeger.”

* * *

The next day, Deku was all bright smiles, enough that the difference startled others. 

“What’s got you so excited, Deku?” they’d ask, and he’d hum with happy eyes and shoot a bright grin their way, but refused to tell anyone just what had him glowing.

* * *

The day of Historia’s coronation dawned bright and sunny, with festivities spilling out over the dusty streets. Deku and Eren laughed as they slipped through the crowd, enjoying the street celebration before stopping at the castle gates to straighten out their ceremonial outfits. The general atmosphere outside was lively, but as soon as they stepped into the official preparations it was like being tossed into a frigid pond full of piranhas. 

Careful political maneuvers and pointed remarks shot across the hall like arrows. Everyone and their mother had something to say about the new Queen, and less than half was complimentary. Deku clutched at Eren’s arm to keep him from lunging at a couple of pudgy old men in military dress who were making lecherous insinuations about the Queen and what she was good for, and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Deku keeps Eren from jumping perverted administrators, Deku stops Eren from insulting jealous old noblewomen. 

Eren griped about Deku sucking the fun out of everything, even if they both knew that Deku would like nothing more than to knock some heads himself, and Deku made sly remarks about being pretty good at sucking other things too, which turned Eren’s entire face red for the next ten minutes and sent Deku into raucous laughter at his reaction.

When the long and stuffy ceremony was over and done with, Deku cajoled the rest of the 104th plus Levi and Hanji into putting on common clothes with the rest of them and hitting the streets to get blackout drunk in honor of their new regime. The 104th heartily agreed that this sounded like a  _ fantastic  _ way to spend the rest of the evening, and so Mikasa was designated “the sober one” and dragged along with the others as the nine of them embarked on a legendary bar crawl that spanned almost the whole of the Interior. 

All the drinkers woke up in the stables behind an inn missing half their clothes and all their money pouches. Mikasa was nowhere to be seen and a short note stabbed into the wooden wall with a dagger stated very plainly that they could all take the walk of shame back to the castle half-naked as punishment for making the stoic girl put up with all of them.

It was a good day.

But all good things come to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second-to-last chapter of AOT... get ready to rrrrruuuumbleeee...


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff! Also a little physical intimacy, training, and confessions!
> 
> aka the calm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter before we return!! 
> 
> tw; biting, sappy confessions, implied grief

Soft morning light fell on the rumpled blankets, hitting Eren right in the face. He groaned, and shifted around a little, Deku still clutched tight in his arms. Deku snuffled, and blinked his eye open, the gaping pit of his left eye vulnerable because he didn’t sleep with the patch on.

Deku tried to get up, but hissed in pain when his joints rebelled with a vengeance. Eren hummed at the sound, and dragged Deku back into his chest.

“F’ve more minutes…” he slurred, clumsily petting Deku’s fluffy hair. Deku yawned, and blinked sleepily, screwing his face up as he started the slow process of spreading lightning through his body to loosen up enough that he could get up and get ready.

“C’mon, Ere-kun,” he mumbled, slowly stretching as his body loosened with the immersion of his lightning. “Gotta get up, y’got Titan training today w’Hanji.”

“Don’  _ wanna, _ ” Eren whined, wriggling down into the blankets. “Y’r  _ mine, _ come back to  _ bed, _ s’too  _ early _ to get up.”

“Prop’rty of Eren Jaeger,” Deku smiled sleepily, brushing Eren’s hair aside to lay a kiss on his forehead. “But if you don’t get up, I’ll have to resort t’ drastic measures.”

“Do your worst,  _ Häschen, _ ” he grumbled, snuggling down into the blankets. Deku grinned, and yanked the covers off in one fell swoop. Eren bolted up with a shriek, flopping around in the frigid morning air. “Not  _ fair! _ ” he yowled, tumbling off the bed in an uncoordinated attempt to snatch the blankets back.

Deku laughed, and danced back to avoid Eren’s swipes for the bedcovers. “C’mon, Ere-kun!” he said brightly. “Time to get up!”

Eren grumbled good-naturedly, but padded over to their shared dresser to dig around for a shirt and a clean pair of white military pants. Once dressed, he slinked over to Deku, who was perched on the rough-hewn chair lacing up his boots. He draped himself over Deku’s back, and breathed in Deku’s heady scent with a deep breath. “Property of Eren Jaeger, yes?” he murmured, and Deku’s answering nod left him smiling. “I expect you back to me just as pristine as you are now,  _ Häschen.  _ Understand?”

“Yes, yes, Ere-kun,” Deku said absently. “Property of Eren Jaeger, and Eren’s things are not broken.”

“Mm,” Eren hummed, and he licked a slow stripe of saliva down Deku’s throat. 

“ _ Ere-kun _ ,” Deku whined, trying to wriggle away from the onslaught, but Eren held him fast, nipping and sucking at the junction of Deku’s throat and shoulder.

“Mine,” he rasped, after releasing Deku’s skin with an obscene  _ squelch.  _ “Property of Eren Jaeger,  _ Häschen.  _ I’m just,” he sucked a bruise into the side of Deku’s neck, clamping down with his teeth and holding fast, making Deku yelp in surprise. Eren unclenched his jaw, but ground his teeth together a little, Deku’s skin held tight in his mouth, drawing a pained groan from Deku that quickly turned husky with pleasure. Eren released him, and licked over the bite imprint, suckling at the beads of blood that rose where Eren’s canines had pierced Deku’s skin. “Making sure that everyone else knows it.”

“Again,” Deku gasped, “harder. All your teeth, Ere-kun. I want a scar like  _ that, _ the kind that marks me yours. Bite me like your hand, Ere-kun, bite me-” he broke off with a shout of pain as Eren’s eyes brightened and he clamped down on Deku’s neck like he did with his hand to trigger a Titan shift. 

He’d been gentle before, Deku knew, but  _ how _ gentle had never truly stuck him until now. Eren moaned as the warm taste of Deku’s coppery blood flooded his mouth, blood spurting from the sides of his lips as rivulets of what he couldn’t swallow escaped the seal of his lips over the wound. Deku gasped as a rush of pain and pleasure hit him like a tidal wave, and he melted into Eren’s firm hold, letting his head loll to the side as Eren sucked blood from his throat, eye unfocused and half-lidded as his hands drifted to his sides, boot ties forgotten. 

Eren lapped at the blood flow until it’d slowed to a trickle, then reached out blindly and took the roll of bandages laying on the desk that Deku handed him. He eased his lips off of the wound and simultaneously pressed a bandage to it, winding the cotton around Deku’s throat to keep the bite from leaking further. 

He leaned back with a bloody grin, contentment shining in his eyes as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the blood over his cheek. Deku’s blissed-out expression slowly cleared, and he blinked lazily a couple times before starting to fuss over the blood that Eren had gotten on his collar. Eren laughed, and turned back to their dresser to grab Deku a new shirt. 

When he turned back, Deku was smiling at him shyly, holding out the leather hair-tie that he’d just Manifested. Eren grinned, trading Deku the tie for the shirt. Deku eased his original shirt up over his shoulders, muscles shifting and rippling under his skin as various knife scars twisted when he moved, his newest tattoo glimmering as it caught the light.

“Property of Eren Jaeger,” Eren murmured as he took place behind Deku, carding his hands through Deku’s long top-half hair and teasing out the knots, humming as he found another grey streak in the verdant green. “Always and forever,  _ Häschen _ ,” he twisted Deku’s hair up into its customary top-knot while Deku shuffled around to get his arms into the fresh tunic.

“Always and forever,” Deku whispered, before sliding the tunic on, pulling it down over his torso so that it covered all his assorted scars and inkings, turning back to Eren with a bright grin. “Ready to go, Ere-kun?”

* * *

For the past week, Deku had been busy practicing his various skills. With a  _ lot  _ of study, and some probably-illegal blueprints, he’d figured out how to Manifest a whole ODM rig from scratch, as well as extra zirconium blades and gas canisters, gas included. He could also do bandages, needle and thread, basic bread and water, although if he tried to drink the water he had to do it while it was in the weird almost-done stage, because if he released it it just splattered all over the place, directing it wasn’t possible. 

It still took him  _ forever _ , because of the sheer level of concentration to do what was essentially dragging together the atoms in the air and reforming them into the atoms he needed for whatever he was making, then dragging  _ those _ together in the  _ exact  _ positions he needed them was insane. He wasn’t sure if anyone else could have done it, honestly. He’d refrained from advertising his new skill, mostly because he didn’t want to spend his time churning out extra equipment, but he had quietly informed Levi, who’d asked no questions and had gotten him those probably-illegal ODM blueprints, flatly telling him to learn to make the gear or die trying.

When he’d done it so often that he could do it in his _sleep,_ he burned his mangled half-formed initial attempts so that there was as little evidence as possible left behind to indicate what he’d been up to. He practiced around Eren with little, easy things, subconsciously forming rolls of bandages and little jars of antiseptic that he just left lying around their room. 

He also practiced knives, delicate little throwing knives that he could Manifest and hit a target with in the same second, and huge, lethal combat knives that could slash and block in the same breath. 

He asked Levi to teach him his spinning trick, where he threw himself at Titans as a little tornado of death. Levi grumbled at the description, but grudgingly described to him the way he would need to balance his centrifugal force, admitting that it was a trick that worked best if you had a low center of gravity, which both he and Deku did have. 

He practiced hand-to-hand with Eren too, sharp grins thrown between the two of them as they slowly but surely honed themselves into killing machines. There was no such thing as dirty tricks in a spar between them, because in a life-or-death fight there was no advantage you could afford to let go untaken. 

Deku spent a whole week with heavy rocks strapped around his wrists and ankles, doing his same physical conditioning routine daily. When he took them off on the first day of the next week, he was twice as fast and his stamina was through the roof. He fought nearly every soldier in the Scouting Regiment, forming styles against almost every other fighter with them.

He spent two months like that, building every aspect of himself into the perfect fighter, the Angel of Death in every way the words meant, making sure that he could quickly and cleanly take out any adversary in his path.

He very determinedly avoided thoughts of wrong-angled necks and blank child eyes. He was the Angel of Death, property of Eren Jaeger, and he would not allow himself to die until Eren said so, no matter what the world threw at him.

And he had a bad feeling about coming times.

* * *

Erwin held a meeting, and Levi relayed to the rest of them that the Survey Corps is making a push for Shiganshina. Eren’s ecstatic, ready to finally find out what his father was keeping in their basement. Deku’s happy because Eren’s happy, and when they mount to ride for Shiganshina they’re ready for anything. 

Until Erwin tells Deku that he’ll be riding with the cavalry, that Eren’s got his own task. Deku does _not_ like that, but he’s not about to get jailed for arguing against a direct order, not for an operation of this magnitude. So he trusts Erwin, and takes his place beside the Commander after saying his goodbyes to Eren.

“It’s just for a little while, yeah?” he says, with a halfhearted smile. “We’ll get this over with, and then we’ll check out you old man’s dumb stuff, I guess. ” he says, avoiding Eren’s eyes. 

Eren smiles, but his eyes are serious as he tucks Deku into his chest. “Of course,” he murmurs. “I’ll see you on the other side, yeah?”

“Mm,” Deku hums, burrowing back into Eren’s embrace. The scarred-over bite on his neck throbs headily, and the words on his back shift with every movement of his shoulders. “Property of Eren Jaeger,” he says quietly. “And your things aren’t allowed to die without your say-so. I know, Ere-kun.”

“Don’t forget it,  _ Häschen, _ ” Eren whispers, and nuzzles Deku’s throat. “I… I love you.”

Deku smiles softly, and tears glimmer in his green eye. “I know,” he says simply. “I think I’ve always known,” he shifts up onto his tiptoes, and Eren leans down a bit so that their foreheads are pressed together, shuddering breaths exchanged between lips a hair's-breadth apart. “I saw in you my salvation,” he murmured. “I took my heartbeat and replaced it with your name. Every step I’ve taken, since I was that child after the Fall, has been to bring myself closer to you. And if you die here, I will surely follow,” he breathed. “So if you value me at all, you’ll live, yes? You’ll live, and we’ll see tomorrow together.”

Eren laughs wetly, warm breath ghosting over Deku’s features. “I don’t know if I can top that one, love,” he smiled, and slid down further to take a deep breath of Deku’s scent. “We’ll see tomorrow together. Job’s not done, after all.” 

“I dedicate my heart to you,” Deku said softly. “All of me, it’s yours, now and forever.”

“Always,” Eren said. “And nothing of mine is ever broken. Nothing of mine dies without my say-so. Property of Eren Jaeger, yes,  _ Häschen _ ?”

Deku smiled. 

“Hey,” Deku asked quietly. “If we’re still alive tomorrow, you wanna get married?”

Eren laughed, loud and bright, and crushed Deku against his chest. “Sure,” he grinned. “Let’s get married. Can you make us rings? Just to hold on to?”

Deku’s face scrunched in concentration, and a silver glow in his right hand Manifested into two matching silver wedding bands, with two delicate silver chains to match. “Here,” he said, with a bright eye, as he strung each chain with a ring. “Turn around, would you?” Eren huffed, and turned so that Deku could clasp the chain behind his neck. 

“Your turn,” Eren replied, and Deku held his chain out obligingly and turned, exposing his neck and brand for Eren to fasten the clasp over it. “There,” he said with a grin, tucking the ring under his shirt. “A promise. And tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll make it official. Maybe ask Erwin to do it. You think he’s certified for that sort of thing?”

Deku giggled, and tucked his ring under his own shirt. “We’ll ask,” he answered, eye bright. He tucked himself into Eren’s side, and Eren wound his arm around Deku’s shoulders as they shared one last quiet moment.

A shout to get ready went out from the courtyard, and he pulled away reluctantly. “I have to go,” he whispered, fingering the ring.

“Hey,” Eren said with an easy smile, tilting Deku’s chin up to look into his eye. “These are a promise, alright,  _ Häschen _ ?” he said, tapping the ring. “We’ll have tomorrow, don’t you worry.”

* * *

“Hey, Erwin?” Deku asked as they rode out. “Can you officiate marriages?”

“I’m licensed to, yes,” Erwin answered, looking at Deku with a critical eye. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” he grinned, lifting a finger almost unconsciously to trace the outline of the ring through his tunic.

_ (Erwin noticed, and only recalled the movement at the end of the day, when the fields of Shiganshina had been watered with blood and a heart-wrenching scream of mourning echoed from their Titan-shifting soldier, clutching the bloodied half of a ripped green cloak. _

_ His breath caught unbidden, and the tiniest feeling of regret bloomed in his gut before he could squash it down. _

_ Was it worth it?) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so, I get that their relationship is moving super fast, but I'm writing all this with them in mind as the impulsive combination of both being teenagers and not knowing if they're going to live to see another day, and both those mindsets together make for people who move fast. 
> 
> the biting; I honestly just liked the idea of Deku having a bite scar for people to freak out over back in bnha, and this was convenient. Plus, they're /teenagers/, and even if they don't really do overtly sexual stuff, (ex kissing/smut), I figure there would be at least some kind of physical bonding between them that goes a little far, and what with the tattoo and Eren's obsession with Deku's neck/scent, I figured some neck stuff plus blood would be an in-character physical intimacy that wasn't explicitly sexual in nature.
> 
> ...plus it's just a cool scar.
> 
> "property of eren jaeger"; Deku has huge self-hatred/self-esteem issues, and Eren is kind of dumb, so the best thing he knows to do to help his partner is creating an unhealthy emotional dependency in which Deku is basically stopping his whole "passively suicidal" deal by telling himself that he belongs to Eren and that Eren's things are protected/cherished/worth staying alive.   
> This will cause HUGE problems for Deku's mental state when he returns to bnha and is separated from Eren's support.  
> This mindset, much like Deku's us/them speech to Eren at the start of their "relationship" is NOT HEALTHY, and I don't condone it in any way, but their relationship is kinda writing itself, so here we are.
> 
> and yeah, that last bit is foreshadowing *evil author cackling*
> 
> we return to bnha next chapter!!! I! am! excited! there will be much suffering, and we shall introduce the lovely better purple child, the one and only shinsou hitoshi
> 
> guess who deku's gonna adopt next... so many choices... so much trauma available in class 1a... so much dRAMA
> 
> plus dadzawa!! and confused!all might!!! and heartbroken!inko!!!
> 
> if you can't tell, I'm excited.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle for Shiganshina, and Stain and Hitoshi both have bad days, although Stain's is significantly worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deku!! Returns!!!   
> Unfamiliar words in italics are spoken in a language that the POV doesn't know, be that German (fanon AOT language spoken inside the Walls) or Japanese (assumed language spoken in BNHA). All language is done through google translate and is probably horribly butchered, forgive me.
> 
> tw; dismemberment, decapitation

The battle was unfolding with a vengeance. It was a blur of Titan smoke and blood, as Reiner and Berthold made their moves while the Scouts fought off a sudden onslaught of normal Titans who were flooding Shiganshina proper. It was like Trost all over again, except there were infinite Titans and no civilians. Almost a playground, except for the fact that people were dying all over the place.

And one specific place kept dragging Deku back to it. It was an unassuming area, the town’s main bell tower, but something about it just had something in Deku’s brain drawn in like a fly to honey. He found his fighting unconsciously drawing closer toward it, spiraling closer, but he always wrenched himself out of the pattern before he could really get near the area. 

He caught up with Erwin after about an hour of slaughter, sliding down to stand next to him. 

“We can’t keep this up forever, sir,” he heaved for breath. “Something’s gotta give, and the Titans just keep coming. Please tell me you got a plan.”

“I do,” Erwin said quietly. “But I can guarantee that you won’t like it. Tell me, Deku No-Surname,” he said, turning to the green-haired young Scout, whose sides were heaving and bones shaking. “Would you offer up your life for Humanity?”

Deku blinked, and turned away to nibble on his lip. “What happens to Eren, sir? If we keep this up? Because everything I am belongs to him, but if you can guarantee his safety when this is all over,” he turned back, his eye gleaming with determination, “I’ll take any order you give me, sir.”

Erwin smiled softly. “Thank you for your honesty, soldier,” he said. “And I can assure you, truly, that if we lose this battle then Reiner and Bertholdt will have Eren do whatever they please with, because all of us who would stop them would be dead. Do you understand?”

Deku’s back straightened, and he touched a gentle finger to the shadow of a ring on a chain around his neck. “Where do you need me, sir?”

Erwin’s features hardened, and he looked to the form of the Beast Titan, who was watching the battle from afar, flanked by fifteen-meters.

“You and I are going to lead a suicide charge with every last remnant of the Survey Corps, soldier,” he said mildly. “And Captain Levi will take that opportunity to take down the Beast Titan and its companions, which block our escape. That is the plan. Are you ready, soldier?”

Deku tilted his head, eye narrowing at the hulking figure of the Beast Titan in the distance. “At your command, sir.”

And, in that moment, Erwin could look at this enigmatic, beaten-down sixteen-year-old killer and feel nothing but overwhelming pride.

* * *

Deku was perched on a horse, a pretty chestnut mare who would probably be dead soon, same as Deku would be. Sina, he’s so sorry. But sometimes the only option left is to go down fighting.

_ Job’s not done. _

He looked at Erwin, a question in his eye that Erwin nodded in answer to, directing his horse back a bit so that Deku alone stood at the head of an army, a war-torn mass of soldiers, bloodied and beaten.

_ Job’s not done. _

“Soldiers!” he called, and in an instant, every eye was focused on his bedraggled form. “This is our last stand, do you understand?!” he screamed. “The Beast Titan and those surrounding it block our way to victory. We will not allow this obstacle to remain in our way, do you understand, soldiers?!” he cried. “We’re tired, and ready to mourn comrades, but listen here! If we give up now, those comrades die for  _ nothing, _ do you understand me?! If we concede defeat here, where it all began, then the rest of Humanity will surely follow! Every last one of us has something we’re fighting for! If we falter now, we leave everyone behind us to die! We condemn them to die for  _ nothing _ , soldiers! Are we going to let that happen?!”

A roar of dissent sparked from the army before him.

“Our objective is to _keep moving forwards,_ do you understand, soldiers?! Don’t stop for _nothing!_ This bastard wants Humanity to lay down and die? I say _no!_ ” he screamed. “We will fight on, soldiers, every last one of us, and we will give this bitch _hell!_ Do you hear me, soldiers?!”

There was a scream of assent from every throat.

“ _ DEDICATE YOUR HEARTS!” _ Deku screamed, tears running down his face as he clapped his fist to his heart in a salute, and thousands of others followed him, the thumping echoing, rolling over the landscape like thunder. “ _ FORWARD!” _

And hoofbeats thundered down the hard-packed dirt like the toll of war drums.

The beating of every heart.

* * *

Everything happened in slow motion. Deku’s heartbeat was loud as he listened to blood rushing through his ears. His horse thundered down the plain, first in a wave of green cloaks, leading the suicide charge.

_ I’m sorry, Eren. _

He saw it, out of the corner of his eye, the first soldier going down as the Beast Titan launched huge rocks at them, projectiles slamming into soldiers and pulverizing them into fine red mists.

_ I’m sorry, Eren. _

The next wave he saw hit a horse, knocking it down with a wild whinny and sending its rider tumbling to the dusty ground. He saw the others faltering, so he charged up his lightning, not to any physical benefit, but he enhanced the  _ lightning  _ bit, creating a viridian, crackling beacon for the mass of fury behind to follow. 

_ I’m sorry, Eren. _

The next, a rock whipped by his face so hard that he knows if he’d been one centimeter to the left his head would have exploded. He rides on, leading those behind him onwards. He thinks he’s shouting something, can feel his mouth moving, but the rushing in his ears drowns out everything.

_ I’m sorry, Eren. _

Craters blossom at his left and right, dirt spraying up in a wave, but he weaves through the cloud of dust and emerges unscathed, lightning crackling to lead the way.

_ I’m sorry, Eren. _

The Beast winds up for another throw, eyes glittering with malevolence.

_ I’m so sorry, Eren.  _

_ I love y- _

He feels his horse stumble, and he’s thrown from the saddle. His cloak is ripped away, and he tenses, expecting to hit the ground, where he will keep running, horse or no, but instead he flies through the air, mouth open in a silent scream. Drawn like a magnet directly into a purple-black smoke vortex hovering right over the Shiganshina bell tower.

* * *

Kurogiri is sort of enjoying himself, to be honest. Tomura is having fun playing around and releasing Noumu into Hosu City, and the destruction they’re wreaking is nice, very nice. 

But he feels an unfamiliar tug on his Quirk, the sort of thing it does when he accidentally sends something somewhere it’s not supposed to be and it slingshots back. He’s not really worried, he’s done it before and whatever it is usually comes back. But this feels… different. He does a rudimentary little check on what’s coming through, and chokes.

_ Fucking hell. _

* * *

Hitoshi is facing the  _ Hero Killer _ , and he is  _ not happy. _ Stain apparently knows the activation conditions for his Quirk, so he hasn’t responded to a word Hitoshi’s said.  _ Stupid  _ Iida Tenya went after the Hero Killer, and Hitoshi was dragged along by his  _ stupid  _ sense of loyalty to his friends. Joining Class-1A after the Sports Festival had seriously been the best thing to ever happen to him, but he was about to die here.

In a dirty alleyway.

With Iida Tenya and Todoroki Shouto.

All three of them are paralyzed, and the Hero Killer Stain is looming over them, licking his knives and monologuing. And then there’s a knife being held to his throat, and  _ oh God please he doesn’t want to die like this- _

And the whole alley is suddenly filled with green light and somebody’s screaming but it’s not him, it’s _not him_ , and Stain’s just been knocked into a wall. There’s a figure crouched on the ground, covered in verdant lightning and _screaming,_ eyes wild as they swing to focus on _Hitoshi_ , who’s fucking _terrified,_ so he just points to Stain with a shaking hand and the figure _pounces,_ drawing out- _are those swords?!-_ and pressing the blades against Stain’s neck.

“ _ Kapitulieren, oder ich werde dich töten, wo du stehst. _ ” the figure rasps. They still seem completely disoriented, and that’s  _ not  _ Japanese, but Hitoshi feels like his brush with death might be slightly past. Todoroki and Iida are sitting up and looking bewildered that they’re not dead yet.

“What… the  _ fuck _ ?” the Hero Killer coughs, and his eyes focus on the figure looming over him wreathed in green lightning. “Who in the  _ hell- _ ”

_ “Halt deine Fresse,” _ the  _ (boy?)  _ says coldly. “ _ Erkläre mir, was zum Teufel hier los ist. _ ”

“Uh,” Hitoshi starts, but when the boy turns to look at him the Hero Killer springs up and grabs his katana out of nowhere, leaping for the other. “Look out!” Hitoshi screams.

The boy whirls around and deflects the sword with contemptuous ease, and then the two are dueling. It’s obvious that the lightning is connected to some sort of physical Quirk as the boys weaves and jabs faster than the human eye, but Stain is doing his best to keep up. The boy lands a hit, and slices Stain’s entire left arm off.

Hitoshi is screaming, Iida is screaming, Todoroki’s eyes are bugged out, which is about the most expressive Hitoshi’s ever seen him, and Stain is shrieking bloody murder. There’s blood spurting all over the place, and when Stain lunges to lick some blood leaking from the boy’s throat, the boy twists to the side and slices up again in a blur of movement, taking Stain’s remaining arm off in a flash of verdant light. Stain drops to his knees, and the boy puts his blade to the Hero Killer’s neck, looking at Hitoshi, clearly waiting for an order.

“Don’t- don’t kill him,” Hitoshi rasps, and the boy nods before swinging his fist around and clubbing the back of Stain’s head, knocking him unconscious in one fell swoop.

Hitoshi falls back, breathing like he’s just run a marathon.

“Who-” Todoroki interrupts, “who are you?” 

The boy blinks at Todoroki, then tilts his head, clearly not understanding. 

“Your name,” Hitoshi says. “What’s your name?”

The boy blinks. “ _ Ich heiße Deku, _ ” he answers, still blank-faced. Iida lets out a sharp gasp, and looks like he’s about to pass out.

The boy’s green  _ (eye?) _ catches the light. 

“Midoriya?” Iida whispers, shaky. “My God, Midoriya is that  _ you? _ ”

_(Midoriya?)_ blinks, then lists sideways a little. “ _Was zum Teufel ist ein Midoriya?_ ”

Iida looks _shocked,_ and then Hitoshi remembers the whispered conversations and the hole in the Class 1A dynamic. 

“Midoriya Izuku,  _ Class 1-A _ Midoriya Izuku?” Hitoshi asks.

Midoriya shakes his head a little, and blinks again, clutching his head. “What the hell is happening?” he whispers.

“Oh my fucking God, you  _ are _ Midoriya. Oh my God. Oh- Oh my- I’m kind of freaking out here,” Iida says blankly.

“No, I-  _ nien, Ich heiße Deku, mein Name-  _ my name is- Midoriya?” he breathes, and looks like he’s about to pass out.

“Jesus Christ,” Todoroki says, and now Hitoshi is  _ really  _ startled, because he has  _ never  _ heard Todoroki swear. “What the ever-loving fuck is going on here?”

And then a fuck-ton of  _ pro-heroes _ show up, which does not help the situation at  _ all, _ and Midoriya looks like he’s really freaking out, like he’s about to  _ stab someone  _ freaking out, and Hitoshi sees Eraserhead coming, he’s Hitoshi’s supervisor, he can figure this out-

“What the hell is happening?” Eraserhead opens with, and Hitoshi explains very quickly that Iida went after Stain and Hitoshi went after Iida and then Todoroki stumbled on them and then they were all about to _die_ and then freaking _Midoriya_ , yeah, _missing-person Midoriya_ showed up literally out of _nowhere_ and _cut Stain’s arms off_ and then he had no idea who he _was_ and he can’t _speak Japanese_ -

“Take a breath, kid, goddamn,” Eraserhead interrupts. “Where’s Midoriya now?” and Hitishi points shakily to where an increasingly frantic looking Midoriya is being cornered by pro-heroes and looks like he’s preparing to fight his way out. “Hey, step the fuck back!” Eraserhead yells, flaring his Quirk over the group surrounding Midoriya. The pro-heroes all wince momentarily as their Quirks flash away but Midoriya doesn’t react at  _ all, _ still poised to move at any moment, lips pulled back in a feral snarl.

Eraserhead sweeps over, and when he and Midoriya make eye contact Midoriya sways suddenly and his snarl drops into something more confused, the blood trickling down his forehead shining in the firelight as he stumbles and drops to one knee. 

“Captain?” he slurs. “What th’ fuck is-  _ wo sind wir- _ ” 

“Japanese, kid, can you do that?” Eraserhead asks, kneeling down so that he’s level with Midoriya. “I need you to breathe, okay? You seem pretty out of it-”

“Did- did we win?” Midoriya slurs deliriously, “where’s Eren, Erwin- Erwin promised  _ er wäre in Sicherheit- _ ”

“Hey, problem child, I’m going to need you to take deep breaths for me, okay? Deep breaths- fuck, watch out!”

A Noumu’s shriek echoes as it swoops down and grabs Hitoshi in its talons, carrying him high off the ground in an instant. An uproar goes through the crowd but Midoriya instantly springs into action, his whole body lighting up with green electricity that crackles as he leaps straight up into the air and shot some cables out of a device strapped to his hips, burying hooks deep into the Noumu’s side and swinging himself up and over, decapitating the Noumu and snatching Hitoshi in the same second, twisting midair to bury his hip-grapples into the side of a building and swing them straight for it while falling, and Hitoshi was  _ screaming  _ because  _ God, he’s not ready to die- _ and then they’re on the  _ ground  _ and they’re  _ alive _ , fucking  _ Christ- _

Hitoshi blacks out in Midoriya’s arms, knowing that he is going to catch hell from Eraserhead for getting himself into these kinds of situations.

* * *

Aizawa Shouta is having a rough day. It started with his coffee machine breaking, so he has had no coffee all day.

This in and of itself is enough to make a day bad. But wait. There’s more.

The day ends with the Hero Killer- _pfft- unarmed_ , his intern traumatized, and fucking _Midoriya_ back. 

The boy pretty much passes out at the scene, after Shouta talks him down like he’s some feral animal that could snap at any moment. The  _ (kid?) _ still has Shinsou clutched in his arms, hunched over him with a wild look in his… eye? Damn, okay. Shouta’s approaching with light feet, his hands in full view so that the kid can see he’s unarmed.

“Hey, kid, it’s okay, yeah? You got Shinsou, you got him. Now we need to get you some medical attention, okay? You’re safe, he’s safe, everybody’s okay, kid,” he speaks in slow, unharried tones, making sure to keep his body language loose and open.

Midoriya blinks a little, and his snarl slowly abates as he starts to sway to the side. Shouta keeps coming closer, slowly. The kid tilts his head like a curious dog, eye fixed unerringly on Shouta even as he slowly relaxes. Then his eye slides shut, and his knees buckle just in time for Shouta to toss out his capture weapon to catch Shinsou’s limp form as he jumps forward to stop Midoriya from hitting the ground. He sets Shinsou down gently and turns back to Midoriya, finding him breathing deeply and twitching slightly.

“He’s unconscious,” Shouta says, turning back to the gawking crowd behind him. “What’s wrong with you all?” Shouta snapped. “Get me a couple of EMTs over here, stat!” A couple of them rush off to obey, but someone steps forward and cautiously gestures to Midoriya’s limp form.

“Uh, shouldn’t you arrest him or something?” the bystander asks, like an idiot.

“Don’t be stupid!” Shouta barked. “He’s a traumatized kid who’s just gotten out of a bad situation. Where’s an ambulance, for God’s sake, these kids are injured! If you’re just here to gawk, scram!”

The crowd dissipated, going off to find something else to entertain themselves, the vultures.

He turned back to Midoriya, and surveyed the kid with a critical stare. The problem child’s green hair had been cut in an undercut, the top half long enough to be in a bun, flyaways escaping and slicked down with sweat and… was that blood?

Good fucking Christ.

His hair was peppered with silver,  _ (and if that didn’t just make Shouta’s head hurt) _ and, at first sight, he appeared to be missing an eye and a finger, with four fingers mangled on his right hand. There was a bite scar on the kid’s neck, and his face was gaunt and sharp, the barest resemblance remaining to connect him with the baby-faced thirteen-year-old who’d shown up in his classroom and broken his bones with his Quirk. 

Well, if what he’d seen today was any indication, then the brat had finally gotten a handle on things in that department.

The rest of it was a bit of a toss-up.

He needed to notify Nedzu, and let him deal with this mess. Shouta’s too old for these shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up we have All Might being overwhelmed and Aizawa making shady ethical choices


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery Girl assesses Deku, All Might Tries His Best™, and Aizawa is not Dadzawa yet but we will get there eventually. For now, he's Exasperated Babysitter Aizawa™.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> italics are an unfamiliar language. Deku does, technically, know Japanese, but he has to jumpstart it a couple of times. 
> 
> aizawa is not!!! just a soft cat person who loves his 20 kids and sleep!! he is an underground hero!! and has morals to match that!!!
> 
> tw; hospitals, amnesia, mental disorientation, human weapons, mentioned human experimentation, mental conditioning, unethical human treatment.

Chiyo has only been as appalled as she is now once before in her extensive career, and that’s saying something, because topping All Might with his organs hanging out of his side is a difficult feat to achieve.

Midoriya Izuku was a medical  _ nightmare.  _ A contrast of peak muscular condition and the whole host of internal issues the boy sported. Repeated overuse of his unsuited strength Quirk had ravaged the boy’s skeletal system. People born with enhancement Quirks were born biologically modified to be able to support them, with stronger internal structures to back an enhanced strength. 

When Toshinori had given a barely-prepared child the cumulative energy of eight generations of power and it had manifested as super strength, Chiyo had immediately known that the boy would have a tough time in life. Dipping below a certain muscle mass or above a certain power threshold would kill him, quite literally. 

It seemed that the boy had been forged into a living weapon, from what Chiyo could tell from his physical condition. Not a lick of fat on him, a tight, compressed form with reflexes tuned live-wire.

But the boy had undoubtable chronic pain, likely from going constantly above the safe power threshold. Not to mention the array of improperly-healed injuries. An x-ray had revealed a shattered kneecap that, franky, should have kept the boy from walking at all. A wide array of basic knife-and-burn scars painting his skin in a tapestry of suffering. Not to mention the missing appendages, eye, and grey streaks that indicated extreme emotional and physical trauma. 

The _tattoos._ Chiyo had already put out an alert on one ‘ _Eren Jaeger’_ , after translating the writing on the boy’s back from what turned out to be a bastardized version of German. She’d put a note in his file as well, as the language he’d reportedly been speaking when he’d appeared might have been German.

That, and he also appeared  _ much  _ older than he was when he’d… disappeared. She’d place his age around sixteen.

Simply put, Recovery Girl’s official analysis was that the boy had been through hell, and that he would need to answer a lot of questions as soon as he woke up.

* * *

Toshinori was kind of freaking out. The moment he heard that young Midoriya had been found, he’d immediately rushed to UA, where he was being treated to avoid a media response. He’d been informed that his boy’s condition hadn’t been good, but as he stood outside the infirmary nibbling on his nails nervously, working up the nerves to walk in.

But before he could stall any longer, the embers of One for All flared inside him with an insisting air, so he took that as a push and opened the door, poking his head in to see his successor.

_ Oh shit. _

Toshinori’s breath caught as he stared at the pitiful form of young Midoriya laid out in the hospital bed. But before he could do anything other than register the truly shocking physical differences, young Midoriya’s eye shot open and he sat up in a flash, breathing like he’d just run a marathon, long green hair streaked with grey swinging up to brush his chin, hints of an undercut showing beneath it.

Toshinori was understandably startled, and jumped back with a shriek of surprise.

The boy’s eye scanned the room before landing on Toshinori in his Small Might form, narrowing his eye before blinking in confusion, tilting his head like a puppy.

“ _ Acht? _ ” he said, clearly confused. Toshinori almost said ‘bless you’ before he remembered that young Midoriya was having some trouble speaking the correct language. He fumbled with his phone and opened up a translating app, selecting German to Japanese and handing the device to young Midoriya, who looked at the smartphone and then back to Toshinori with the expression of someone who thought they were being made the subject of a particularly unfunny joke. “ _ Was zum Teufel ist das, dünner Mann? _ ”

“Oh, uhm,” Toshinori scrambled. “You, uh, touch this little microphone icon, and then you talk in your language, and it’ll tell me what you’re saying in my language.”

Young Midoriya stared at him blankly.

Toshinori felt decidedly stupid. He took the phone back from young Midoriya and fiddled around for a moment, then repeated what he’d said into the translator. A tinny version of the same sentence in German comes out, and Midoriya jumps, looking down at the phone and then back up with wide eyes. He immediately starts tapping, and eventually the phone sounds.

> “ _ Where the hell am I, what the fuck is happening, where’s Eren, how in Sina’s name do I know you?” _

“I- uh-”

> “ _ Listen here, Eight. The only reason I’m not busting my way out of here and taking you with me as a hostage-slash-information source is because something tells me you won’t come quietly and this bed is really comfortable, seeing as I haven’t slept in one for the past couple days. Now, explain.” _

Toshinori gapes. “T-that sounds a little villainous, young Midoriya-”

> “ _ Three Holy Walls, what the hell is wrong with you, you broken record? Either you tell me where I am and how I got here or I’ll go find out myself, and I can guarantee that you won't like that.” _

Toshinori almost trips with the speed that he backs away. “Uh, I-I’m going to go- find someone who can answer your questions.”

“ _ Eight, you skank, get back here-  _ asshole!  _ Du bist so wenig hilfreich!” _ young Midoriya is sitting up and yelling curses in German, insulting Toshinori’s entire bloodline, lack of sexual activity and his… horse’s infidelity?

Toshinori is hustling  _ (fleeing)  _ back down the hall when he runs into Aizawa-san. The ragged man takes one look at Toshinori’s harried features, and then turns his head back to where young Midoriya can still be heard yelling something incomprehensible but assumedly derogatory. He grins that disturbing smile of his.

“W-would you mind talking to him for me?” Toshinori says sheepishly. “He- ah, doesn’t seem to recognize me.”

_ And wasn’t that a kick in the balls? Finally have him back, but it’s not him at all.  _

Aizawa-san hums thoughtfully, and his face flickers slightly when a loud crash echoes from Midoriya’s room.

“I’d step aside if I were you,” he says mildly. Toshinori is offended for a moment before he twisted just in time to avoid a green blur zipping past him. He squawked in surprise when Aizawa’s scarf shot out and caught the boy in midair. Midoriya howled, and thrashed around in the capture weapon’s hold.

“ _ Aus! Aus! _ ” Midoriya screeched, tossing his head and wriggling around.

“ **Soldier** ,” Aizawa barked. Toshinori shot him a startled glare, but Midoriya froze, then went limp as all the fight seemingly drained out of him. “Good. Use your words.” 

“Out, please,  _ Kapitän, _ ” Midoriya said blandly.

“No, but I’ll set you down,” Aizawa said. Midoriya didn’t react, and Aizawa lowered the capture-weapon child burrito to the ground, where the boy laid quietly, no sign of his earlier struggle present in his blank expression.

“What the hell?” Toshinori asked. Aizawa sighed, and turned away.

“This is the fourth time he’s woken, and every time he’s almost completely disoriented. His first reaction on seeing Recovery Girl was to scream for answers, and when he woke again he showed minimal recognition to his mother, other than commenting that she resembled him. I was near him the third time, and he seems to think I’m his military superior, which has been coming in handy getting him to accept instructions,” he looked searchingly at Toshinori. “What did he say to you?”

Toshinori sighed. Aizawa had been made privy to the secret of One for All as an integral part of the investigation dedicated to finding the boy, and All for One had been widely assumed to have taken the boy for that express purpose.

“He called me Eight, presumably in referral to One for All,” he answered. “He asked where ‘Eren’ was, where he himself was, how he got there, threatened to take me hostage and beat information out of me, and then insulted me in several shockingly inventive ways.”

“Sounds about right,” Aizawa yawned, and looked back at young Midoriya. “Stand up, soldier. We’re heading back to your room.”

Young Midoriya rose to his feet, posture military-perfect, and walked silently behind Aizawa back down the hall, not turning to acknowledge Toshinori at all.

Toshinori shivered.

* * *

Deku was back in the room. His head was fuzzy. Tall-Levi was saying something, and when Deku was called he followed. A good soldier obeyed orders. Good soldiers were useful.

Useful soldiers didn’t go away in the night.

Deku wasn’t sure why, but it was very important that he was useful. 

Walking the tightrope… where was Eren?

“Captain, where’s Eren?” he whispered. Tall-Levi said something. Who was he talking to?  _ Soldier. _ Yes, that was Deku.

“ _ Anata no kotoba o tsukatte kudasai, heishi. _ ” Tall-Levi commanded. Ah, yes. He was supposed to use the  _ old-new-familiar _ language.  _ Use your words, soldier. ( _ **_Not_ ** _ my words, not  _ **_my_ ** _ words, Eren, I need  _ **_Eren please_ ** _ ) _

“ _ Eren wa dokodesu ka?”  _ Where is Eren, please. Please, he needs Eren. Property of Eren Jaeger, please, he needs Eren. Deku traces the shape of the silver ring on a chain around his throat. They hadn’t taken it, just like his patch, the Captain hadn’t let them. Yes, the Captain was good, good, but he  _ needed  _ **_Eren_ ** _.  _

The Captain did not reply, but instead used his  _ (capture weapon?)  _ to nudge Deku to lay back on the bed. Deku doesn’t close his eye, but stares up at the ceiling. The fog in his head is slowly clearing as thoughts of Eren replace the heavy blanket over his thinking.

“Please-  _ onegaishimasu, Kapitän.  _ Where’s Eren-  _ Eren, onegaishimasu,  _ please-”

“ ** _Heishi._** _Nokori. Anata wa mada iyasu hitsuyō ga arimasu,”_ **Soldier**. Yes, Deku is a good, useful soldier. Deku will follow orders. Rest and heal, yes. Deku can do that. Deku will be a useful soldier. Deku closed his eye and relaxed his muscles, letting the lightning drain out of him inch by inch so that he would be able to use it again tomorrow, to be useful.

The pounding in his head increased, pulling at the thick fog in Deku’s brain, but Deku shoved it down as his body locked up in the absence of his lightning’s current. He was frozen on his back, with his hands to his sides and his legs straight. He will move again when he wakes, and revitalizes his lightning, but for now he will rest and heal as he has been ordered, so that he will be useful. 

“ _ Suimin, heishi,” _ Tall-Levi commands before he leaves, pulling the door closed behind him. Deku’s mind slowly shuts down, and he sleeps, as he is ordered, because he is a good and useful soldier.

* * *

Shouta sighs as he pulls the door closed behind him, cutting off the sight of Midoriya Izuku laying flat on the hospital bed, eye blank and features placid. Someone had done a hell of a job on that kid, he could tell. Something about Shouta was reminding the problem child of an authority figure, but instead of reacting with terror like any  _ normal  _ traumatized kid might have, some bizarre conditioning had kicked in, and so every time Shouta  _ (and only Shouta, they’d figured that out pretty quick after he’d started clawing at Recovery Girl when she tried)  _ called him “soldier”, something in his head kicked his independent thought back and left a living weapon with perfect command response in its place.

It was  _ unnerving _ . But, as much as Shouta hated to say it, it was extremely helpful as well. None of the restraints they’d tried had held him down for longer than five seconds, and unless they wanted to get  _ inhumane _ in their treatment of him, the easiest thing was to have Shouta hold the kid’s proverbial leash.

Shouta felt bad, of course he did, but seeing as Erasure didn’t work on him  _ (All Might had explained that it was probably a side effect of Midoriya not having an original Quirk factor. He was born Quirkless, just like All Might, and since Erasure specifically targeted Quirk factors, the fact that Midoriya didn’t really have one meant it didn’t work. He came by a Quirk through artificial means, and that Quirk was operated straight through his brain rather than through a natural Quirk factor. Shouta had hypothesized that this was why Midoriya had broken bones when he used the Quirk in the past, because there was no natural regulation unless he did it consciously.)  _ being able to simply flick a switch in Midoriya’s head was convenient in keeping him contained. 

He feels bad about keeping the kid in an almost-constant cycle of sleep, hysteric confusion, and psychological fog. But he’s an Underground Hero, and that means his morals are loose when it comes to doing what needs to be done.

And if the wild screaming episodes and numerous murder-slash-escape attempts were anything to go by, keeping Midoriya contained and docile was definitely what needed to be done. Shouta’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.

The timing is good, though. He’d been looking into finding a way for 1-A to test their skills against a higher-level enemy. Hm… a practical lesson in subduing mind-controlled civilians without hurting them?

Possible. The fighter being Midoriya would help make the idea of subduing teammates more realistic. Shinsou’s Quirk wouldn’t be useful to simulate this type of exercise anyway, since control was broken with touch. Land a hit and the fight would be over. That wouldn’t do.

Yes, this could be useful.

It might not be very ethical, but then again, Shouta’s Underground for a reason. He’s never been much for the traditional black-and-white of the heroics industry. Shouta is viciously pragmatic when he wants to be, and this is an  _ excellent  _ opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so, you gotta keep in mind that Deku's psyche is almost completely shattered. He basically built a wall around his suicidal tendencies and used his relationship with Eren as a foundation for his personal identity. Now that he's in a completely different place, he's latched onto the one familiar thing he can see and is falling back into his "useless/useful" mindset, which he will build a new purpose on top of in BNHA.
> 
> yeah, it gets worse.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midoriya's mental health takes a dive, we reintroduce him to class 1-A, and Best Purple Boi is Exasperated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> timeskip, pretend that there's been like two weeks of Midoriya having short mooments of lucidity between bouts of screaming, bouts of crying uncontrollably, sleeping, and being under Aizawa's control for his own safety. 
> 
> tw; multiple personality disorder, obsessive grief, depression, psychosis, human weapons, Aizawa Shouta Is Not A Nice Guy, amnesia, swearing (kacchan POV, and he aint a happy camper)

Deku’s eye opened, because his internal clock said that it had been eight hours and eight hours was how long he was supposed to sleep. He tried to twitch a finger, but none of his joints or muscles would cooperate until he wove lightning through his system. 

He blinked a couple times, and started to trickle lightning through his veins, just enough that it warmed his bones a little and pooled in his joints. The pain was starting, prickles of energy like needles stabbing through his skin, concentrated specifically around his right hand and knee.

It was nothing. He was used to it.

Deku spent a moment wishing desperately that he had Eren with him, but stopped quickly. He’d come to the conclusion that he’d died in the suicide charge at Shiganshina, and that this was Hell. He’d certainly done enough bad things to land himself here, without a doubt. He spent all of his time either asleep, screaming hysterically and sobbing, or in a mental haze as his body followed orders. He was happy to cede control to the Soldier when Levi asked him to. It wasn’t like Deku was missing much.

But, for a few stolen minutes now, Deku No-Surname, Property of Eren Jaeger, took a moment to pour lightning through his body and mourn what he’d left behind when he’d died at Shiganshina. He should be happy that Eren wasn’t here in Hell with him, he knew. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have his moments of weakness.

He traced the shape of the ring tucked under his cotton t-shirt, closing his eye and reminiscing. He’d… asked Eren to marry him. And Eren had laughed, and said yes. They were going to have Erwin officiate, if they both survived.

Ah, there was the guilt. He was sorry he’d died. He broke his promise to Eren, because Property of Eren Jaeger didn’t die without Eren’s say-so. But that didn’t mean that Deku wasn’t still Property of Eren Jaeger. Deku still bore the words on his back, still wore and traced the ring.

But the Soldier wasn’t Eren’s. The Soldier existed only to follow orders, and that was just fine in Deku’s eyes. It was nice to separate things out, nice to be able to dedicate  _ all  _ of Deku to Eren, and leave the Soldier to deal with the rest of the world.

Now there was an idea.

Deku hummed thoughtfully as he slowly flexed his fingers, shifting his shoulders as the lightning slowly worked its magic on his broken body. _Deku_ could take little pockets of time and that time would be for Eren, _just_ for Eren and for thoughts of him and the promise that his ring represented. The _Kapitän_ and the rest of Hell could do what they wished with the Soldier, and the Soldier would follow orders as good, useful soldiers do while Deku could be tucked away in a peaceful corner of the mind, tracing the ring again and again and again, his whole world consumed with Eren in the privacy of his head, with only the Soldier to share space with. And good soldiers knew how to respect the space of others. 

The Soldier would use the body when the  _ Kapitän  _ called him, and Deku would… entertain himself, he supposed, as much as one can be entertained in Hell.

Deku was liking this more and more.

He knew the Soldier wouldn’t come until he was called, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t prepare the body for the day’s tasks before picking out a nice nook in the mind to languish in when the Soldier was busy following orders. Deku personally disliked following orders, unless they came from Eren of course, but Soldier was built to follow orders. The Soldier would do just fine.

He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, pops echoing through the white room. 

The lightning had sufficiently loosened his legs, hips, and spine, so he swung his feet around to plant them on the floor, arching his spine like a cat and letting out a jaw-popping yawn, blinking sleepily as he rotated his wrists.

Deku positioned his left hand, and Manifested a comb and a strip of leather to tie his hair with. Usually Eren would do this for him, but Eren was still alive, and Deku was dead. He’d just have to deal with it until Eren inevitably joined him.  _ (Because as much as he personally regarded Eren as an angel, he was aware that killing people sent you to Hell. And Eren had defended himself before plenty of times.) _

He awkwardly tipped his head so that his long green-grey hair tumbled over his shoulder, and directed the comb through it as best he could using a hand missing a pinkie. He scowled as it caught on numerous tangles, and had to clumsily paw at it with his mitten of a cripple hand to get his comb through a particularly stubborn knot. Once he could get the comb all the way through his hair all the way around, he stared disappointedly at the leather strip he would need to  _ somehow  _ tie his hair up into a bun. He… didn’t know how to do this. Eren had always done it for him.

Before he could sink into a full panic attack, the door opened, and the  _ Kapitän  _ stood framed in the doorway. He could tell the man was about to call the Soldier, but he threw a hand up.

“Wait!” he said frantically.  _ Kapitän  _ closed his mouth and raised his eyebrows.

“No screaming today?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “What'd you need?”

Deku smiled sheepishly, and rubbed the back of his neck, holding out the leather tie in his left hand. “Could you tie my hair up? I can’t really do it myself, and the Soldier probably wouldn’t think to ask you.”

_ Kapitän _ ’s eyebrows went higher, and he walked over to take the tie from Deku’s outstretched hand. “The Soldier, you said?” he asked, in a deceptively uninterested tone. Deku hummed an affirmative, but didn’t elaborate.  _ Kapitän _ didn’t twist his hair when he pulled it up like Eren did, but gathered it into a little ponytail and then wrapped it around itself, leaving a little to fluff out the back. Deku supposed he’ll never again be able to wear his hair like he had before. It was living-hair, he guessed. And this was dead-hair. 

“You’re surprisingly lucid today, problem child,”  _ Kapitän _ said mildly.

“Yes, well,” Deku said, “I think I’ve sorted myself out a little. It ought to make this easier, I suppose. Are you finished?”

“Yes,”  _ Kapitän _ said, stepping back. “Does that feel okay?”

“It’s fine,” Deku said. He didn’t really care. If this was his dead-hair, then this was his dead-hair. It would never be as good as his alive-hair that Eren did for him, but Eren was alive, and with luck he’d stay that way for a while longer. “Do you need me for anything else,  _ Kapitän _ ?”

_ Kapitän _ inclined his head. “I was hoping that now that you’re coherent, you could answer some questions for us.”

“Me?” Deku asked, puzzled. The  _ Kapitän _ wouldn’t want to know anything about Eren, because he was dead too, and the dead don’t usually concern themselves with the living. Deku’s pretty sure he’s a special case. Eren was all Deku knew, so he wouldn’t be useful answering any of  _ Kapitän _ ’s questions. The Soldier liked to be useful, though. “Oh, no, you don’t want to ask  _ me _ any questions.”

The  _ Kapitän _ ’s eyes sharpened, and his hair started to float slightly. Deku absentmindedly wondered if things in Hell usually did that. “I’ve got some questions for you,  **Soldier** ,”  _ Kapitän _ said firmly, calling the Soldier up immediately and allowing Deku to happily fall back into their mind-space. 

Yes, he thinks he’ll spend some time thinking about the way Eren smiles. Eren’s smiles can keep him occupied for as long as the Soldier is needed.

* * *

Shouta watches the disturbing transformation that’s triggered when he addresses the problem child as ‘soldier’. From the odd responses he’d been getting earlier, when Midoriya had been lucid and actually had a handle on himself without Shouta needing to flip the switch, Shouta assumed that the kid had created an alternate personality out of his conditioning.

Undoubtedly unhealthy, and yet morbidly fascinating, and extremely useful if the Soldier only responded to Shouta and his commands, without a personal will.

Yes, Shouta was aware that this was completely unethical and absolutely not helpful towards Midoriya’s eventual recovery.

_ And yet… _

From what he’d seen of Midoriya’s response to the Noumu, and Hitoshi’s account of the Stain fight, Midoriya was a deadly commodity on the battlefield. Maybe in the beginning he’d been a student, someone to be protected and trained to eventually hold a Hero license. 

Frankly, Shouta didn’t think that was in the cards anymore. Midoriya just wasn’t independently functional, and even if the piece of him he’d seen this morning had seemed level-headed, once it got out what an absolute trump card he was in a fight and that he was obviously mentally unstable the kid would never be able to stop running, be it from villains or the Hero Commission.

The Hero Commission would tear him apart and put him back together as the Soldier  _ permanently _ . Shouta knew, he’d seen it happen with overly-successful vigilantes and even some villains. Hawks, the Number Three Hero, was a product of one of their more blatant child-soldier programs.

No, better he stick with Class 1-A. After all, what better guard for his students than someone who was _one of them,_ able to seamlessly shift from helpless student to lethal weapon with a single word from Shouta?

He would need to hide his abilities, for now. Shouta could take care of that with a few words. Mask that crazy precision and power, pass off the Noumu as adrenaline and Stain as luck. A shaken but recovering UA student, with a traumatizing kidnapping experience marring his first year, but a regular student besides.

And if the League ever tried to pull anything with his students again, the Soldier would slaughter them at Shouta’s command. He had no doubt that the Soldier was capable. Shouta's been the one stopping the escape attempts, after all, and when Midoriya  _ really _ wanted something, he would stop at  _ nothing  _ to get it.

His conviction would need to be reinforced. A steady connection with Class 1-A, good friends in Midoriya’s eyes and charges to be protected in the Soldier’s.

He looked up from his thinking spree and saw _(Midoriya? No, the eye, the features, the posture- this is the Soldier)_ staring at a point beyond his head, ever patient.

“Soldier,” Shouta says, The green eye focuses instantly, fixed on Shouta with an intensity that he knows would be uncomfortable if he didn’t also know that the tension in the Soldier’s frame was to jump to obey. “I have some questions about your… situation. I will ask, and you will respond with full disclosure.”

“Yes,  _ Kapitän _ ,” the Soldier replies, unmoving.

“Where is… the other one, while you are here?”

The Soldier tilts his head. “Inside,  _ Kapitän _ . He waits in the mind until he is called back.”

“How will I call him back, when I wish to?” Shouta asks, walking back to sit down in the room’s chair, leaning back with his hands on the chair’s arms.

“As I respond to Soldier, he will respond to…” the Soldier trails off, and tilts his head again, as if listening to someone whisper in his ear. He huffs something that might have been amusement. “Dead Deku No-Surname, Property of Eren Jaeger.”

Shouta blinks in surprise, then promptly decides that this is not the most ridiculous thing he’s seen today and decides to go along with it.

“Is it disorienting for you to shift? Am I the only one who can trigger it?”

The Soldier’s nose wrinkles slightly. “Not too bad for me. I’m always waiting, because I’ve been designated as a combat response and a command-follower. I have to know what I’m getting into when I’m called. The other would be… difficult. He’s missing Eren, and spends the time alone sifting through our memories of him. And as far as we know, only you trigger it, although  _ I _ know you’re not the other Captain. He will be… more insistent on seeing you two as parallels. It shouldn’t be a problem to get a shift. He would never follow orders anyway, even if you gave them. That’s why I’m here.”

“Who is… Eren? I assume you refer to Eren Jaeger?” 

“Yes. He is… everything. But our orders pulled us away from him and sent us here, so we split. The other is dedicated wholly and unerringly to Eren, and the life we had with him. The way we were with him. I’m the duty that called us away from him; I’m the one that does what needs to be done,” he looks at Shouta with a considering eye. “I saw a bit of what you were planning earlier. The other will play normal student easily, and the concession for that is that I’m the one who does the fighting and takes orders, time that he can spend with the shadow of Eren that we have left.”

Shouta narrows his eyes. “How autonomous are you? Who holds your loyalty?”

“Everything will always belong to Eren before anyone else. In his absence, my complete command is in your hands. I will also show a small natural leeway with the people that the other trusts. If practiced and repeated…” the Soldier cocked his head. “The purple-haired one would do in a pinch to trigger a shift. You should share this with him, and in an emergency he will be capable of calling.

“The only reason I’m speaking like this now is because you ordered answers, with full disclosure. It is… opening more of me than would be usual. You could give me a vague directive, and I would carry it out to the best of my ability with the other’s subconscious guiding me to take steps that command left blank.”

“Are you able to act independently in any given situation, or do you have to be given directives with every new shift?”

“The shift is a… reset, shall we say. I will only have the other’s subconscious and your current command to guide me.”

“Can you trigger a shift in an emergency situation, or can the other do it for you?”

“No. Without your direct call, or that of Shinsou Hitoshi, I cannot step forward, and the other cannot cede control, no matter what’s going on.”

“Why Shinsou?”

“During the Stain fight, before we split, we momentarily took directives from him. It seems that was enough to form a tentative connection.”

Shouta makes a thoughtful noise, and leans back in the chair, crossing his hands over his stomach. This is a terrifying power he’s just been handed, but there’s no backing out now.

“Will you both generally answer to the name Midoriya?”

The Soldier hums. “Perhaps, with every shift, include a directive to react to the name Midoriya.”

“I see,” Shouta says. This has been an enlightening conversation. “Thank you, Soldier. That will be all. Dead Deku No-Surname, Property of Eren Jaeger?”

And he watches as the Soldier slumps, then blinks back to life, looking for all intent and purposes like he’s just woken up from a nap.

“Hm,  _ ja, Kapitän _ ?” Dead De- good grief.  _ Deku _ opens with. Shouta smiles grimly. 

“Japanese, please,” he replies, and Deku huffs, before rolling his eye exaggeratedly. 

“Yes _,_ _Kapitän_?” he drawls mockingly.

“Better,” he says blandly. “Did you hear what the other and I spoke of?”

“You mean the plan of action? Yeah, I heard it,” Deku answered. Shouta nodded.

“Will you be able to do this?”

Deku yawned. “Yeah, I guess. Not like I have much else to do. I’ll spar and stuff, but any real fighting has to be left to the Soldier.”

“Fair,” Shouta replied, inclining his head. “Will you be requiring any other concessions?”

“I don’t want to live with that lady who was screaming and crying. I know you all have some weird idea that we’re related, but even if that was my mom I have no memory of her and would greatly prefer someone who wasn’t going to have the waterworks on all the time. It annoys me. And both the Soldier and I need plenty of space to train. Just because I don’t enjoy the battlefield doesn’t mean I’m defenseless.”

“Also fair. You’ll be in my custody then, I suppose. Nedzu’ll allow it because I’m holding your proverbial leash, and in court it’s a standard Ward-of-the School arrangement. The school gyms will be available to you whenever I’m on campus, and you can use them while I work. I get here early and leave late, and you’ll be coming with me. The gym will be a good place for you to be while I grade papers. I was planning for a training exercise with 1-A in a couple days. In the meantime, I'll be assessing your combat capabilities. Would you like to meet them before, or after?”

“Before, I suppose. Get any nasty surprises out of the way.”

Shouta raised an eyebrow. “Are you expecting any nasty surprises?”

“Well,” Deku grinned. His canines were sharper than expected. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

* * *

Katsuki needed to kick some ass. Stupid Deku had gone missing at the stupid USJ, and Icy-hot had spilled that at the Stain incident, Deku had shown up out of nowhere and gone apeshit with his shitty fucking fake Quirk, and no one had seen him since. 

Aizawa-Sensei tossed the door open, as-per-fuckin-usual, like the dramatic ass bitch he is, interrupting Katsuki’s train of thought. Katsuki begrudgingly settled in his seat, knowing full well not to fuck with Sensei in the mornings.

But today, something was different. Instead of slouching over to the lectern as per usual, Sensei opened the door for someone else, and then that  _ shitty. Fucking. Deku.  _ walked right in behind him, looking like hell. The class openly gaped, and Deku just raised an eyebrow and looked at Sensei for directions. Sensei blandly gestured over in Katsuki’s direction.

“You’ll be sitting behind Bakugou, Midoriya,” he said. Deku nodded, and loped over to the desk behind Katsuki, the eyes of the entire class tracking him as he went. Katsuki did a cursory scan. Eyepatch, grey streaks in a green undercut/bun, weirdly-shaped ear, a little taller, sharp features, mangled hands, bite scar on his neck, various knife scars in random places, slight limp if you knew what to look for.

Where in the hell had Deku been?

Deku slid into the seat and leaned back, ignoring the rest of the class and staring placidly at the board.

No one moved.

Sensei broke the tense silence with a heaving sigh, as he shuffled up to the front to lean on the lectern. “In case any of you have forgotten, this is Midoriya Izuku. He was kidnapped by villains during the USJ Incident and recently returned. He has total amnesia and likely will not remember any of you. Don’t pester or overwhelm him. He’ll be doing separate makeup work in your academic classes, but will join you for practicals,” Sensei swept his eyes over the class, and focused in on Mind-fuck. “Shinsou, Midoriya will be shadowing you for a while to learn his way around. Make sure he doesn’t get lost, or out of hand. Also, general advice to you all, don’t try to order him around,” his creepy grin stretched across his face, “because he might stab you, and then there would be a lot of paperwork involved afterward.”

The entire class collectively leaned away, faces suddenly wary.

Deku smiled sharply, the fucking creeper.

“We’ll be doing a new training exercise this afternoon, which I will supervise along with All Might. Be adequately prepared. Take a nap during lunch if you need to, because, trust me, you’re going to need to be awake for this. Homeroom dismissed.”

* * *

Hitoshi was feeling betrayed.  _ Why  _ on  _ earth  _ would Eraserhead have Midoriya follow him around? Didn’t Eraserhead remember that Hitoshi had watched Midoriya slice off a serial killer’s arms like it was  _ nothing?  _ Hitoshi is traumatized and cannot deal. He cannot  _ deal _ . Why does Eraserhead do this to him? He is but a simple cat-loving insomniac who wants to be a hero. 

He stands and swings his bag over his shoulder, ready to head to English, their first class. Midoriya’s watching him, and Hitoshi jerks his head for Midoriya to follow him. He starts down the hall, Midoriya plodding along behind him, nondescript blue backpack hanging off his shoulder, hands in his pockets. They weave through the crowd, Midoriya deceptively loose, but Hitoshi can see the tension in his slight frame.

English and all the following classes are normal, Midoriya working quietly at his desk. At lunch, he looked pitifully overwhelmed, eye wide and mangled fingers twitching where they’re clutching his backpack straps. Hitoshi takes pity on him and gently takes his arm, leading him over to an empty table. 

“Sit here, Midoriya. Do you have a bento, or do you want me to grab you something?”

Midoriya looks hopelessly lost. “Uhm, no bento?” he responds unsurely. “I- uhm, I’m not really hungry…”

“That’s fine. I’ll get you some rice or something. I have a feeling you wouldn’t appreciate the cutthroat nature of the lunch line on your first day. Don’t… wander off, or anything,” he pats Midoriya on the head absently, like a puppy, and slouches over to the crush of people by Lunch Rush. It’s while he’s jockeying for a place that realizes he just ordered Midoriya around, and, contrary to Eraserhead’s warning, did not get stabbed. 

Huh.

After a million years, Hitoshi’s finally got his own katsudon and some plain rice for his tagalong. He turns to make his way back to where he left Midoriya and freezes in horror to see that he’s been surrounded by inquisitive classmates who’re excitedly grilling him on where he’s been.

Hitoshi rushes over, barely managing to avoid knocking into some people. He  _ knows _ something bad is about to happen, he  _ never  _ should have left Midoriya to his own devices-

Bakugou came storming up to Midoriya, eyes flaring and fists clenched. “DEKUUU!” he roars, in his usual fashion, lunging for Midoriya with a furious expression. Hitoshi scrambles as Midoriya’s eye sharpens and he twists around with a knife in his hands-

“ _ Midoriya, no! _ ” Hitoshi screeches. Midoriya freezes for a moment, and instead of driving the knife into Bakugou’s guts he grabs the blond’s neck and slams him face-first onto the table in a chokehold. Bakugou howls, thrashing around like a stuck pig. Everyone surrounding them scrambles back, leaving a wide ring of space around the two grappling. Hitoshi puts down the trays and skids over. 

Midoriya has a delicate butterfly knife pressed against Bakugou’s throat, and he looks pleadingly up at Hitoshi with a wide green eye. “Stabs, please?”

“No!” Hitoshi shrieks. “No stabs! Put that away!”

Midoriya’s bottom lip pushes out into an adorable pout, and his green eye gains a teary shine. “Just a little slicing?”

“No knives! What will Eraserhead say when he finds out you’ve gone and stabbed someone? He  _ explicitly  _ told me not to let you stab anyone! You think your puppy eyes are enough to get me to forget about Eraserhead’s wrath?!”

Midoriya pouts harder, and draws his shoulders up in a display of vulnerable pleading. “Pleeeease?”

Hitoshi wavers. Bakugou is a very mean person… and technically the blond did attack first… and that pout is so sad…  _ no! _

“No. No stabs,” he affirms, crossing his arms and leveling his best glare at the green-eyed knife gremlin, who sighs sadly and tucks the butterfly knife away somewhere in his uniform. “Let the loud blond go.” 

“But he started it!” Midoriya whimpers, looking very sad indeed. “What if I just break his arm? Just a little fracture?”

“Wait until training, gremlin,” Hitoshi says.

Midoriya sighs sadly, and steps back, letting Bakugou fall to the floor and cough, clutching at his throat while rasping for breath.

Midoriya looked up at Hitoshi with a guileless expression and an eye that seemed to say  _ well? Happy now? _

Hitoshi pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

* * *

Deku is enjoying himself, honestly. Hell’s not that bad, other than its lack of Eren’s presence. There’s this fun purple child that he’s supposed to follow around, and if he had anything better to do he wouldn’t be listening to the  _ Kapitän _ , not really, because that’s the Soldier’s job, but he respects the  _ Kapitän _ enough to take his suggestions. It’s easy to follow the purple child, so that’s what he does. 

He completes his work packets, even though it bores him half to death. Math is no trouble, because the physics calculations that come with the ODM gear are math anyway, and the other work is just memorization. He thinks it’s stupid to be stuck inside all day when he could be out exploring Hell, but he recognizes that he should learn more about this new world before jumping into it.

Plus, he likes being near the  _ Kapitän _ . He’s a bit of familiarity in this odd new place.

The training exercise this afternoon is going to be the Soldier fighting members of Class 1-A, both one-on-one and one-on-groups. Deku’s excited to have a break from having to deal with people, and the Soldier is vaguely anticipating getting to know his charges’ fighting styles, as well as showing off a little for the _Kapitän_. 

He walks up to  _ Kapitän _ when the hero students arrive at the training ground, all decked out in strange, impractical outfits. Deku’s still in his regular uniform, seeing as no one told him he needed anything else. 

“What’s with the horrible costumes? I thought child prostitution was looked down on here?” Deku asks  _ Kapitän _ curiously.  _ Kapitän _ chokes a little, and looks at Deku incredulously. 

“You- what- no? No, that’s not-”  _ Kapitän _ splutters, looking genuinely flustered. Deku tilts his head curiously. Is there some social nuance he’s missing here?  _ Kapitän _ sighs, slumping into his grey scarf. “Whatever. No, they’re hero costumes. Are you going to, what, fight in your uniform?”

Deku shrugs. “Soldier can adapt, but he would prefer his own uniform. If you’d call him and tell him to go change, he’d be most comfortable and you’d get a better idea of his capabilities.”

_ Kapitän _ raised his eyebrows, but shrugged. “Alright then.  **Soldier** ,” he said, and Deku happily sank away.

* * *

The Soldier went to the locker rooms and spread his hands out, palms flat and facing up. The Other plucked the strings for him, silver threads wiggling up out of his hands and pulling together to form the neatly folded basic field uniform he’d used with the Scouts, minus the cloak. This was a basic spar, it wouldn’t be needed. And since this was Hell, they wouldn’t recognize the green anyway. The Other sent up a vague sense of agreement. 

The Soldier stripped down to his issued boxers, and tugged on the field uniform. White breeches, white shirt, tan half-jacket with the Wings of Freedom on the back and lapel. Tall leather boots went on after the ODM gear, gas canisters clicking into place above blade scabbards. He smoothed down a few creases, and slid the handle triggers into their slots.

When he got back to the training ground, his charges were already sparring with one another. He watched for a moment, noting techniques that were especially useful or needed work. 

_ Kapitän _ motioned for his attention, and the Soldier walked over quietly, posture military-perfect and face blank. 

“I’m going to put them in groups of five, and each group will enter the mock city. You will hunt them down and subdue them, no maiming and minimal property damage. Unconscious and immobilized both count as subdued. Respond to no commands other than mine. When the buzzer sounds, it indicates that the exercise is over. You will return to me when the exercise is over,” the man raised an eyebrow. “Objectives clear?”

“Yes,  _ Kapitän _ ,” the Soldier murmured, slipping away to find a perch and observe his charges’ entrances and opening moves. The Soldier wasn’t accommodated to stealth, that was more the Other’s place. So the Soldier will wait, and see what his charges do before making a move. 

He swings through the mock city, ODM gear hissing as he took tight corners before stopping in a crouch in a nice area with plenty of cover and a clear view of the gate. He knows he still has about ten minutes before his charges arrive, so he relaxes for a moment and sits cross-legged, taking out his right blade-grip to bind his fingers around the handle as is customary. He pries open the stubborn claw grip it’s settled in, and uses his left hand to position the right, right immediately locking up as soon as he lets go. It’s painful of course, it always is. But the throbbing isn't so bad that it becomes distracting, and that’s all that matters.

The Soldier settles in to wait, eye glowing softly in the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay okay okay SO  
> don't hate me  
> I'm doing my very best to fuck Midoriya up in as many ways as I possinly can I- PROMISE- there will be a happy ending. But for it to be /meaningful/, there must be blood and tears and absolutely unhealthy mental states and Aizawa Shouta Is Not Nice. 
> 
> Like, in coming chapters you'll see. This isn't a happy story for him. He doesn't have Mic around for him to be friendly/have positive self-care with him. He is bLEAK and cYNICAL and wants to protect his students for all the wrong reasons but loves them anyway. He will /eventually/ be able to take on a more positive relationship with Midoriya, but right now he's a bitter hardass. Like Snape. But cooler. And really good at kicking ass. And also younger too bUT let's move on.
> 
> Yes. I know that the 'Soldier' concept is probably disturbing. But what literally tore him away from Eren was following Erwin's order to lead a suicide charge at Shiganshina. He lost Eren because he followed orders. He then spent two weeks oscillating between rage, apathy, depression, and murderous escape attempts. This is the only thing he knows how to do, because, let's face it, he sUCKS at mental health and is bad at taking care of himself, and Shouta is literally encouraging it because he's a bitter cynic with an axe to grind on the LoV for besting him at USJ. 
> 
> (yall dont get it like Shouta's got a villain motive and everything Eraserhead is like a kajillion times more badass and- but that can wait)
> 
> so- my job as writer is to put everyone here through an emotional meat grinder
> 
> yall ready


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kacchan gets thrashed, Shouta is a creepy bastard, and Hitoshi Has Regrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not a lot of plot, but we get some nice introspection from Aizawa and Shinsou
> 
> tw; child soldiers, implied/referenced self-harm, denying treatment, slavery

Katsuki’s not worried at all about this exercise. It’s him, Shitty Hair, and a couple of extras against dumb Deku with his fake quirk. Sure, so the shitstain knows some martial arts and had a knife. So _what?_ Katsuki’s not scared of _anything_ , and he’s certainly not scared of some knife-happy Quirk-faking disturbingly weird creepy bastard useless Deku. 

_ Every _ single one of those adjectives is accurate, Katsuki  _ knows. _ He’s known that fucker since Deku was still shitting himself back in preschool, and when his dumb nerd Quirk didn’t come in, Deku only got weaker and more useless. Always  _ stuttering,  _ always trying to  _ help, _ always  _ looking down _ on Katsuki. Ha, as if that useless nerd was anything more than a pebble in his path.

Katsuki is  _ not scared. _

He’s  _ not. _

_ So why is my heart pounding? _

Their group of five splits up, figuring that it’ll be easier to hide if they’re in smaller groups. Dumb Shitty Hair is sticking with Katsuki, jabbering something about teamwork and how awesome Katsuki is. The ass-kissing is nice, but it got a little annoying after a while. They’re walking through the streets, Katsuki keeping a careful eye out, although he’s pretty sure that useless Deku would never even  _ dare _ attack him, no matter what kinda shitty fucking so-called memory loss he had. Quirkless bastard was probably just lying for attention again.

A voice in his head whispered,  _ did he maim himself for attention too? _

But Katsuki banished that dumb stupid voice right outta his head, cause there was  _ no way _ that Deku wasn’t lying. Then again, he was useless and weak. Probably got himself captured by that shitty Shigaraki Hands-Fucker just for being so weak, and then they probably locked him up and hit him or something. Nothing the nerd didn’t get daily in middle school. Nothing that would make him any less of a damn Deku.

_ But Stain… _

Stain was just a fucking rumor. Just stupid extras who didn’t know what they were talking about. Deku was  _ useless  _ and  _ weak _ and  _ dumb _ , and that would never change, no matter how many times he got kidnapped and  _ (tortured) _ .

A soft hissing sound caught his attention, and he looked up sharply, crimson eyes narrowing.  _ What the fuck…? _

And then there’s a blur in the corner of his vision, and he’s whipping around to set off an explosion, but pain bursts on the side of his head and the world abruptly goes black.

* * *

In the viewing room, Shouta stands with his arms crossed as he and the other students not currently in the faux city watch the exercise through the cameras. The students titter nervously as they watch their classmates split up on the screens, each of them taking a different path except Bakugou and Kirishima, who travel together. 

The class saw the Soldier when he came out of the locker rooms, sure, but they saw nothing of his skills. Shouta had put the Soldier through his paces earlier that day, basic unarmed combat and a short display of his ‘ODM gear’. 

Even under command, the Soldier wouldn’t speak of where they’d been beyond short, unconnected, insignificant details. Deku would wax poetic about Jaeger, but nothing useful that would give any helpful clues as to what had really happened, and they both spoke of vague concepts, a never-ending war for freedom. Shouta’s personal theory was an alternate dimension, but he didn’t pry. Even if his theory was confirmed, there was nothing that could be done to catch the perpetrators other than taking down the League, and while looking further into it would probably be helpful in regaining Midoriya’s memories, Shouta wasn’t ashamed to say that he liked this version better.

Like he’s always said, he’s Underground, with morals to match. When Midoriya arrived in UA at the start of the term, he’d been a sniveling, subservient, traumatized mess with bright potential. Now, that potential had been sharpened to a deadly point. Shouta could tell that in the coming times, his bubbly students would need to be the same. 

No one knows what Midoriya might have become if he’d been broken and put back together with 1-A rather than in his own war, but even if his memories were regained, there would be no going back. 

Shouta did some research. Midoriya was meek and quick to tears because he’d been mentally, emotionally, and physically abused by pretty much everyone since his fourth birthday. It almost brought up a lick of sympathy in Shouta, who’d been ostracized for his ‘unnatural’ Quirk for as long as he could remember.  _ (Shouta knows the long-sung song well, and he’s seen Midoriya’s arms. Horizontal for help, vertical for results.)  _ Fortunately, Shouta is excellent at suppressing his emotions, so he just added this newest notion to his neat little mental ‘Midoriya’ file. 

The kid’s going to stay at his apartment, Shouta knows. The dorms aren’t ready yet, so both he and Shouta will be sticking around Shouta’s seedy, cheap studio apartment. The area’s not tame, you keep your hands in your pockets and your eyes wary. Of course, because nothing about Shouta is  _ tame. _

_ (Because no matter how much more the people need them, Underground Heroes are not well paid. They don't do it for the media, or for the money. And in return for putting their lives on the line, they either die alone in dirty alleyways or live out of each other's pockets.  _

_ UA pays well, yes, but Shouta is only one person, and by the time he got the UA job he'd already put the fear of God into everyone in his building. Seeing hardened criminals -that he can’t quite legally convict for any charges- flinch as he walks past them with his groceries is  _ **_intensely_ ** _ satisfying, and he doesn’t need much space anyway. _

_ Midoriya can take care of himself, besides. Shouta won’t coddle him. He’s seen Deku’s knife work, picked up on little cues purposefully dropped. Deku was on the streets, in his other world, and he’d survived. He’d be fine. The other tenants would be suitably terrorized into submission, and it’d help Midoriya’s street cred out as well.  _

_ Shouta is good at his job, and it’s  _ **_not_ ** _ because he’s a paragon of all that is good and righteous and fighting fair. He’s good at his job because he can think like the criminals he catches, but instead of being hunted by the law he  _ **_is_ ** _ the law. That’s the sort of thing that makes the thought of crossing  _ **_Eraserhead_ ** _ automatically force scum to cringe.  _

_ There’s a reason he was a one-man army at the USJ, no physical Quirk required. Shigaraki got the drop on him, the  _ **_League_ ** _ escaped  _ **_Eraserhead,_ ** _ left him bruised and bloody and broken. Aizawa Shouta is not the kind of man to let that transgression stand.  _

_ Insult atop of insult, they touched  _ **_his_ ** _ students. Shouta doesn’t have much in the world, but what he does have he doesn’t let go easy. He’s expelled more students than he can count because they were glory hounds and money mongers, with strong Quirks and even stronger egos. He won’t have people like that running around on  _ **_his_ ** _ streets. And, make no mistake, they are  _ **_Eraserhead’s_ ** _ streets, even if it’s only the big bosses that know it. Fear trickles down ranks even better than money.  _

_ These kids have potential. They could be something good. With a little hard work and sufficient suffering, they could be something  _ **_great._ ** _ Shouta knows the world is cruel, has known since he was four years old. The world will break these kids, will temper them like steel. Shouta can’t save everyone. But if he has anything to say about it, and he damn well does, he will build them right back up afterward, harder and more prepared than ever.  _

_ The world needs heroes that can do what needs to be done. Shouta’s got a responsibility to see that the next generation is prepared to carry the torch. In his mission, Midoriya’s willing assistance will be invaluable. The Soldier is a scythe, and if he’s compliant, Eraserhead knows  _ **_exactly_ ** _ what needs to be culled to ensure the future. _

_ And the Soldier, in a stroke of nothing short of a miracle, is at Shouta’s command, his blank-faced right hand. There are few who see the world the way Shouta does and still move forward. Shouta is not a nice person. He picks his hills to die on and he does what needs to be done, nothing less, nothing more. He fought tooth and nail at USJ against impossible odds, against cerebral fractures and shattered bones, because his students are  _ **_his to take_ ** _ and unequivocally  _ **_his to break._ ** _ Why can’t anyone else  _ **_see?_ ** _ Who does the League think they are, to stand on Eraserhead’s sacred ground?  _

_ They seem to think that his status as a teacher and his fancy, pretty hero license have dulled his fangs, have softened his bite. Ah, they must be new in town. Allow Eraserhead to  _ **_demonstrate._ **

_ And he did, he does. He razes their pitiful little army to the  _ **_ground,_ ** _ and those in the ranks who recognize the capture weapon and the fury-red glare have already surrendered, shaking in fear. Yes, this is how things are supposed to be.  _

_ But Shigaraki pulls some  _ **_tricks,_ ** _ cheats the  _ **_game._ ** _ The Noumu is unexpected, and Eraserhead is broken, bloodied.  _

_ Eraserhead loses, for a moment. That will not stand. _

_ This is his counter, his offering to the arms escalation. They want mindless super soldiers? Oh, they’ll get soldiers. It took some time, it did, and Shouta was worried he might have to drag his still-fragile not-ready- _ **_yet_ ** _ students into the fray, but then Midoriya arrived in a blaze of light and  _ **_destruction,_ ** _ ready-made for the first person who got their hands on him. Eraserhead sweeps those other heroes aside as he stalks over to the snarling figure that could be his best chance. Those idiots wouldn’t know an opportunity if it slapped them in the face. _

_ Blinded by  _ **_money_ ** _ , what a ridiculous notion. Money is nothing but a means to power for those too spineless to do the dirty work. All the talk of  _ **_therapy_ ** _ for Midoriya, of  _ **_healing,_ ** _ of  _ **_recovery,_ ** _ of  _ **_back to normal_ ** _. That blubbering wretch, Midoriya Inko, whining and whinging about a mental hospital, about putting “her poor, disturbed little Izuku” away in a psych ward where he would have been  _ **_squandered._ ** __

_ Nedzu saw what Shouta was doing, and he wholeheartedly approved, but agreed that beyond getting Shouta the boy’s guardianship he promised to stay out of it. That Nedzu’s apprentice was now taking an apprentice, some twisted line of succession.  _

_ Nedzu controls the heroes. Every UA alumni bears loyalty, owes loyalty to the school that made them the people they are, that  _ **_molded_ ** _ them. _

_ Eraserhead made the Underworld his bitch. They are  _ **_nothing_ ** _ without their reputations and their Quirks, and Eraserhead can rip  _ **_both_ ** _ out from under  _ **_anyone’s_ ** _ fat, pampered feet. _

_ And Midoriya will be their wild card, the guaranteed-win in on any physical battlefield, their ownership over Japan’s blood and bone. The Soldier, built for war, and Deku, the snake in the grass, the thief in the night, the k n i f e - t o - t h e - t h r o a t , g u t t i n g - r i c h - b a s t a r d s - a n d - l e a v i n g - t h e m - t o - b l e e d - o u t - o n - ex p e n s i v e - r u m p l e d - s h e e t s . _

_ Shouta’s only thought upon seeing Stain’s dismembered corpse, left to bleed out in the confusion, is  _ **_y e s._ ** _ ) _

* * *

Hitoshi watches as Midoriya- no, the  _ Soldier  _ zips between buildings using the same hip-wires he used to  _ (decapitate the Noumu)  _ rescue Hitoshi, back in Hosu. 

Eraserhead took him aside before the lesson, and explained the responsibility Hitoshi’s been handed, what Hitoshi got himself into when he told Midoriya not to slice Stain’s throat. What was  _ acknowledged-accepted-SEALED  _ when, at Hitoshi’s command, Midoriya complied, and spared a serial killer.

Hitoshi wishes with every fiber of his being that he’d just let Stain  _ die. _

But it’s too late now, and a blood-bargain has been made. The Hero-Killers’ arms are cooling on the pavement, five meters and a significant pool of blood separating them. Two instruments of death discarded in favor of a much more prized one.

Hitoshi thinks he may throw up if he thinks for much longer about how he’s just accidentally bound someone to slavery. Instead, he’s decided that he will be the best friend Midoriya has ever had. Friendly and kind with Deku, and respectful and polite to the Soldier.

The living weapon that’s currently  _ showing off _ to Hitoshi. 

He’s become good at reading people, you have to be to survive with a  _ villain’s Quirk _ . And he can see it, in the minuscule upturn of the Soldier’s lips, the tiny spark of excitement in his blank green eye. The Soldier is  _ happy _ to be paraded around in front of the cameras,  _ happy _ to have the chance to display his  _ value _ to his  _ masters. _

It makes him  _ sick. _

God, Hitoshi hates this. He’s spent his entire life being ostracized for taking control of people, for imposing his own will on others. Class 1-A, for all their inclusion hype, is wary around him, he sees it in the subtle set of their jaws when they’re forced into conversation with him. 

But, just like he’s been given a Quirk, he’s been given a Soldier.

And, just like his Quirk’s, the Soldier’s value cannot be ignored.

Hitoshi’s not  _ stupid _ . He knows his class will be targeted again, that it’s only a matter of time. He may not like them, but that doesn’t mean he’ll abandon them. 

Which means that Hitoshi needs to suck it up, bite the bullet, and be the nicest, most friendly, most caring…  _ director... _ that he can be. Because all that’s left is to keep moving forward. It’s all Hitoshi could ever do. Keep moving forward, suck it up, make sarcastic comments along the way. How’s that for plus goddamn ultra?

He can’t believe he’s doing this. He should be screaming, should be running to the Principal, should be crying to the police that Eraserhead is actually a pseudo mob boss who rules a good portion of the criminal world with an iron fist and has just acquired a completely brainwashed child soldier to do his heavy lifting.

But he’s not.

Because, as much as it grinds on Hitoshi’s every moral, Eraserhead’s the lesser evil. Sure, he runs a shadow empire to keep terrorists, drug dealers, arms smugglers, and human traffickers from getting out of hand because he doesn’t have enough evidence to put them away and there’s not enough space in the prisons to hold them. Sure, if there’s someone really troublesome starting shit, they’d probably be found belly-up in the river. Sure, he’d happily help Hitoshi hide a body, perhaps give him a stern lecture on starting a body count a little early, but afterward he’d probably ruffle Hitoshi’s hair and send him on his merry way, reminding him to turn in his essay assignment that’s due the next morning.

Okay, yes, that might have happened once.  _ Maybe.  _ It was an  _ accident, _ he swears! Wrong place wrong time, and he didn’t want anything connecting him to murder. His  _ villain’s Quirk _ would send him straight to prison, and he’d probably get beat up by Death Arms for good measure. Stupid prejudiced bastard.

Hitoshi’s getting distracted.

What’s happening now is that the Soldier is absolutely decimating the poor dopes sent up against him, and he’s enjoying getting to show off.

_ (Hitoshi is very, very guiltily enjoying the show.) _

Ah, yes, Bakugou was just brained in the side of the head by the Soldier’s flying kick. The explosive bitch is sent  _ sprawling _ , knocked out cold.

_ (Hitoshi will have to compliment the Soldier. Maybe send him flowers.) _

And the Soldier hasn’t even used his  _ Quirk _ yet. 

Maybe this isn’t so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u guys have no idea how excited I am to make eraserhead an antihero. like I am s o e x c i t e d . next chapter features midoriya being a Sad, Feral Child


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kayama Nemuri has Comments, Aizawa Shouta's living arrangements are called into question, and Midoriya falls into old habits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mehhhhh. this chapter has a lot of description, it's not my favorite, but whatever.
> 
> tw; mentioned body dumping, mentioned blackmail/extortion, living in poverty, child neglect (sort of, if you count Shouta being Midoriya's guardian as Mido being his "child"), implied/referenced underage sex, prostitution

Classes are over, and Shouta’s getting ready to shuffle off and fill out a couple more forms regarding the upcoming final exams. He waves  _ (Deku? Yes, Deku) _ off to go enjoy the freedom of Gym Gamma, and all the training amenities provided there. He’s got to hang around here for the next two hours or so, and then they can pick up Midoriya’s UA-issued clothes from his makeshift psych ward off of the infirmary. 

He’s moving Midoriya into the studio apartment today, now that he’s not a flight risk. The boy will shadow him on his nightly patrols, so that Deku can quietly gather information useful for infiltration at his own behest, and so that Shouta can start getting the Soldier’s image around.

Make no mistake, he wants the Soldier’s mere presence to eventually act as a massive deterrent toward any criminals with brains. Midoriya’s physical appearance is extraordinarily distinctive, and there’s really no hiding some of it. The eye and hands will be the most difficult to conceal. Sunglasses or a mask of some sort wouldn’t last long in a combat scenario, and his hands’ distinctively mangled appearances can’t really be disguised very well by gloves. A high collar will cover the neck brand, and some kind of quick dye or a hood would fix the hair. 

Shouta already made some discreet movements with Power Loader, and has acquired a uniform similar to Midoriya’s go-to combat outfit that he’d arrived in, except in black and dark green and hooded instead of the un-stealthy white and tan  _ (bulletproof and fire-retardant, naturally) _ . What they now know the kid calls ‘ODM gear’ apparently was  _ exceedingly _ complicated, and adapting it would be a huge nuisance. The best streamlining Power Loader had been able to do was make the scabbard/gas tanks less clunky and a little slimmer. 

Midoriya had immediately broken into the lab and stolen the blueprints. 

He would have gotten away with it too, the problem child, if Shouta hadn’t already thought to set up snares in the vents. He’d arrived in the problem child’s cell that morning and found it empty, then simply followed the sound of distressed caterwauling. 

That took a while, because it turns out that crying and screaming while in the vents bounces the sound around the  _ entire fucking school _ . One of the most embarrassing moments of Shouta’s professional life is having to enlist the help of all the pro-hero teachers to scour the campus until Midnight finally found the kid, curled up and stuck tight in a sticky net that Shouta had set specifically for this express purpose. 

All the traps had little sensors that were supposed to go off when they were tripped, so that Shouta would know where to go and fetch Midoriya from. Unfortunately, this sensor hadn’t gone off when the net activated, so the problem child was stuck in there for assumedly around forty-eight hours, given that he absconded with the plans at around three in the morning and Shouta hadn’t realized he was missing until that morning, then about a day and a half to find him. UA’s a big campus, and they couldn’t exactly cancel classes for the reachers to crawl through the vents, could they?

_ (Every single student was thoroughly disturbed by that one day when the entire school echoed with hysterical sobs. No one knew where the noise was coming from, and when asked all the teachers did was shrug and say that it was ‘being handled’. This has happened several times. UA is now thought to be haunted.) _

Midnight stumbled upon the little gremlin curled in a fetal position, trapped in the sticky net and clutching a bag of blueprints to his chest, tear tracks down his cheeks and a bloodshot eye. He was sniffling sadly while gnawing on the net, and making decent progress in fraying open critical points. Midnight bet that he would have been out of it in another hour or so.

She’d bundled him up _(still in the net, of course)_ and dragged him back to his room, the child deliriously moaning the whole way about the mean Captain who stole all his knives, and about how he was too tired to make more. This was apparently a great point of contention for him, and he spent the walk back whimpering about how his brain hurt.

* * *

Kayama Nemuri had tried to take a more active role in the kiddo’s treatment after that, knowing that Eraser was a cold-hearted bastard with no idea how to properly raise kids. Aizawa Shouta was excellent at building weapons, and judging potential. But the actual upkeep of a live human child, who was in need of reassuring and healthy human interaction? Nemuri could not think of a single person worse for that besides Nedzu. Her public persona as Midnight was not child-friendly, of course, but she liked to think that at her core she did possess the capability to be caring and kind.

Midoriya didn’t need to be built into a weapon now, not like this. Nemuri had gone to school with Eraser, she knew how he thought, his ruthless practicality. He would ruin this kid in every way possible, until all that was left was a hollowed-out reflection of Eraser himself. He’d drag the kid to his seedy apartment and pin him between the criminal underworld and the shining halls of UA. He’d tell that kid all about all the  _ travesties _ going on, all the  _ injustices _ , and the kid would lap it up. He’d pretend to care, and then he’d turn around and wave a hand at the rest of the world, telling Midoriya that  _ someone needed to be willing to get their hands dirty. _

Nemuri knew, because he’d given her, Tensei, and Hizashi the same speech when they’d graduated, had looked at them with bright eyes and explained to them how he was going to rule the world someday. They’d laughed. 

Now, Nemuri wasn’t laughing. She hadn’t called Eraser by his given name since she’d found him dumping a body, and he’d inclined his head at her, dead-eyed, and told her it was hero work.

She’d gotten a glimpse of the corpse’s face, and it had been a girl. A young woman. She’d scoured the missing persons reports for days until she’d stumbled on the name.

The politician the girl was survived by had put forth new legislation that weekend.

Nemuri wasn’t _stupid,_ no matter what the media said about her. She hadn’t turned Eraser in for blackmail, extortion, and probable murder. A last payment in the name of their former friendship. And Eraser wasn’t stupid either. She had the sneaking suspicion that he’d been exactly where he’d wanted to be that night, just to see what she would do.

And she was almost certain that if she’d tattled, it would be her body in the river later.

She wasn’t about to let Eraser infect another kid with his poisonous ideals. The  _ greater good _ had killed Aizawa Shouta, rotting him away until Eraser was left in his place. If Kayama Nemuri has anything to say about it, Midoriya Izuku will  _ not  _ be anyone’s legacy.

Unfortunately for Midnight’s resolve, Aizawa Shouta has planned for almost everything, and his former friend messing around in his business is not welcomed.

* * *

Shouta slouched into Gym Gamma with his hands tucked in his pockets and his face buried in his capture scarf. He slid the door open and peered inside to catch a glimpse of Deku in the middle of something. Shouta leaned against the door and watched silently, curious as to what the kid was doing. 

Deku was flowing through a rehearsed litany of kicks and punches, but at a snail’s pace. Every muscle was held at maximum tension, a lethal potential contained in every centimeter of movement. He ran through slow-motion combinations with clenched muscles and rock-steady hands. The slow dance gradually sped up until the kid was a tornado of movement, throwing high, flying kicks and sweeping his limbs back, dancing around imaginary opponents like flowing water. Then he started to put his Quirk in the mix.

Shouta grinned sharply as he crossed his arms. _This_ was what he wanted. Green sparks were dancing through Midoriya’s movements, putting air pressure behind attacks in a specific pattern that Shouta noted were _literally_ creating a personal tornado around him. A cyclone of verdant energy twisted around Deku in a flurry of _power._

The boy wound down, reeling the lightning back under his skin, panting and hunched over with his hands on his knees. Midoriya stood, and looked back at Shouta, exasperated. “ _ Kapitän _ ,” he huffed. “You finally finished there, old man?”

“Problem child,” Shouta grumbled. “Grab your stuff, we’re heading out.”

Deku pouted, but walked back to the locker room door and pushed through, letting it swing shut and leaving Shouta to complain internally about dumb teenagers. 

* * *

Deku walked into the  _ Kapitän _ ’s living space with a healthy sense of wariness, and adjusted to the sickly, flickering light with an appraising eye. It was far from the worst place Deku had stayed, beating out the back room of a brothel by miles. It featured a corner mattress that presumably belonged to the  _ Kapitän _ , a camp stove with a minifridge, both plugged into a bank of outlets that also hosted connections for a security monitor, as well as a charging laptop computer and a WiFi router, all squatting on the stained floorboards. An open, ratty suitcase was propped up by the mattress, spare uniforms and medical supplies spilling out.

The other corner was cordoned off by a stained curtain tacked to the ceiling, hiding what Deku assumed to be the bathroom facilities. Deku nodded, and flicked his eye back to the  _ Kapitän _ with a questioning glance.

“You’ll need to find your own bedding and clothes,” the  _ Kapitän _ said blandly. “I trust you to take care of yourself. You can sleep, shit, and shower here, but everything else is your own prerogative. Familiarize yourself with the area and the people. You’ve got free reign of your own time, mostly, as long as you’re coming with me to UA in the mornings and coming back here when it’s done. Every now and then, I will bring the Soldier with me on… business matters. 

“I don’t care what you do at night, but if your work starts declining we will have a problem. Your subdermal tracking implant will allow me to keep track of your location. If you fail to present yourself here at seven in the morning, which is when we leave for UA, I will activate the tracker and hunt you down. If you’re genuinely incapacitated, you’ll be in trouble for getting yourself into something you couldn’t handle. If you’re  _ lollygagging  _ somewhere…” his eyes took on a flinty glare, “you will not enjoy the consequences. Do not try to run. The effort on my part to drag you back will be annoying, but, trust me, I  _ will _ drag you back. And then you’ll be back in the White Room at UA. Understood?”

Deku hummed an affirmation, and tilted his head a little. Fair’s fair. This is the  _ Kapitän _ ’s place, so Deku will follow the  _ Kapitän _ ’s rules. “What’s your policy on bedroom trysts?” he asked.

“I trust you to use your own discretion. Don’t bring anyone back here, don’t get any nasty diseases, don’t get anyone pregnant, don’t get arrested, and be back yourself by seven.”

“Yessir,” Deku answered, dropping his bag in the unoccupied corner. “Am I going to have my face pasted up everywhere by UA, or is my look still nameless?”

“Hm,” the  _ Kapitän _ said thoughtfully, walking over to fold back onto the mattress. “Might want to invest in gloves and a less characteristic eyepatch. Cover your hair, too, the grey-green combination is rather…” his features twisted in distaste, “...distinctive.”

Deku fingered his sleeve thoughtfully. “Can I get a loan?”

“How much?”

“Just 6500¥. To start up, you know.”

“I expect payback,”  _ Kapitän _ said, digging out his wallet and pulling out bills. 

“Give me a week,” Deku promised, tucking the bills into his pocket seamlessly. “Can I head out?”

“Be back by seven, problem child,”  _ Kapitän _ instructed, stretching out on the mattress. “Lock the door on your way out.”

* * *

Deku slipped through the crowd at this seedy, low-down club. Lights were flashing and the scent of perfumed smoke hung heavy in the air, sex and money so thick you could almost  _ taste  _ them. Deku’s dark blue sleeveless and backless halter top exposed his abs, Trostian tattoo, and the delicate curve of his spine. Black ripped jeans hugged his curves, and slender combat boots tapped quietly on the sticky floor. A dark grey headscarf was drawn around his hair, but scarlet-painted lips and wings sharp enough to flay a man highlighted his features.

There’s always one thing that someone’s willing to pay money for, and that’s sex.

Deku sidled up to an important-looking pretty boy, and a universal trade was offered. A lovely night for a lovely sum. The lecherous white-haired twentysomething trailed greedy eyes over Deku’s exposed skin, and hastily agreed. He asked for Deku’s name, and offered his own.

“ _ Call me Tempest _ ,” Deku had purred, with a half-lidded eye and a slow, curling grin. “ _ You’re in for a bit of a whirlwind. Got somewhere to take this, Kurono Hari? _ ”

The man had licked his lips. 

* * *

Deku arrived back at the  _ Kapitän _ ’s slum around three in the morning, sore but decidedly richer than he had been when he left. He ghosted around residents, not quite energetic enough for a showdown now. He slipped into the one-room living space through the window on light feet, and laid 6500¥ down by the laptop computer before going to take a shower.

He was toweling off when he realized that he hadn’t bought any fresh clothes, and huffed, annoyed with himself. He held out a lackadaisical hand and dragged his power to the surface of his palm, a silver glow forming into a thick blanket. He dug through his bag to pull out the basic t-shirt and cotton sweatpants he’d worn in the White Room at UA, wriggling into the clothes before curling in the corner, wrapping the blanket around himself and his bag.

It was nostalgic, really. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's s o e a r l y and I'm like half asleep but I wanna get this posted for today so here we are. Next we have the finishing out of the school year, and I'm starting the Shie Hassaikai arc early, so we'll lay groundwork for Eri too. Next /next/ is I-Island, because it's right up the Soldier's alley and we haven't seen much of him lately.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The school year ends, I-Island begins, and Midoriya enjoys gorgeous suits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ba~ack  
> not many notes for this one. for the suit think your stereotypical villain!Deku outfit, just nice and crisp
> 
> tw; implied/referenced torture, implied/referenced human experimentation, implied/referenced underage sex, implied/referenced prostitution, border smuggling, multiple personality disorder, poverty

Life went on. UA was an academic blur of fighting and mind-numbing worksheets, a bright vision of heroes and the future. 

Time away from UA was a sheer contrast.

When Deku got back to the slums with the  _ Kapitän _ , he took a quick nap, grabbed a bite to eat  _ (UA lunches were already very filling) _ , and then either slipped on his ‘work clothes’ and went to prowl the nightclubs, maybe meet up with Kurono, or the  _ Kapitän _ would call for the Soldier and the two of them would beat people up all night long.

Kurono was turning out to be a very valuable contact, and was apparently spreading Tempest’s name and haunting grounds around. Deku built Tempest’s reputation as a wild night ride-cum-informant role, and was quickly carving out a niche in Musutafu’s underworld. A comfortable web of information-gathering was cast in Tempest’s shadow, and sex, of course, paid the bills. 

Then, Deku came across some  _ very  _ interesting information. Quirk-erasing bullets, manufactured by the Shie Hassaikai, using a little girl’s blood to do so.

For normal people, this would be no issue. Normal people would be worried about the product.

But Deku, the  _ freak, _ the  _ dissected, _ someone who’d been under the scalpel with seemingly no way out, was coldly furious. And when he found out that his  _ dear  _ Kurono-kun was in the loop about this?  _ Well. _

_ At least he knew who to question first. _

* * *

Kurono broke in the end, they always do. There was lots of  _ begging  _ and  _ pleading  _ and “ _ they’ll kill me if I tell” _ -ing, the usual. Deku hadn’t advertised Tempest’s…  _ other  _ skillset just yet. If people knew how dangerous he was when he wanted to be, they’d be much less likely to fall into beds with him.

So Kurono was completely blindsided when he woke up lashed to a chair, his precious Tempest-chan hissing  _ “Chronostasis,” _ in his ear.

It took a couple nails, but he sang like a bird. Compound location, guards, Quirks, security, dirty cops, dirty heroes. And when Deku had all he needed, he killed Kurono with a merciful snapped neck. He couldn’t live, not after perpetuating such a  _ disgusting  _ business as child-torturing, but in the name of their friendship Deku made it quick.

Let it never be said that Deku doesn’t pay his debts.

* * *

The operation was going frustratingly slow. Final exams were approaching at UA, and even though Deku wasn’t really relying on his results, he was still swept up in the chaos of frantic cramming. In the meantime, he spends nights scoping out the Shie Hassaikai compound, rather than his usual athletics. His funds suffer, and he looks a little gaunter for it, but his extraction/massacre planning is chugging right along. 

Deku hasn’t had a natural good night’s sleep since he arrived in Hell, and left Eren’s warm embrace behind, but he’ll take collapsing in exhaustion over nothing any day because  _ dammit, he hasn’t slept over two hours a night in  _ **_weeks-_ **

The tenement’s rickety air conditioning isn’t dealing with the heatwave very well, but it’s nothing new to Deku, who’s slaughtered Titans in hundred-degree weather, and blood ferments much nastier than regular old sweat. The cooled halls of UA are a novelty that Deku’s not used to at _all,_ most closely resembling the cold stone of the Scouting Headquarters’ innermost halls, except with _sunlight._

Fucking weird.

Over exam season, Shinsou had decided that he wasn’t gonna be Deku’s only point of contact with Class 1-A, so he dragged Deku to all of Yaoyorozu’s tutoring sessions even though he didn’t really need them. Deku enjoyed watching his classmates struggle, in a passive kind of way. They, in turn, warmed up to him a little and stopped flinching when he moved, even going so far as to awkwardly greet him when he arrived, Shinsou’s hold on his arm firm to keep him from getting any ideas of escaping.

The Soldier was vaguely ambivalent about their situation. He was mildly pleased with Shinsou, if a little fascinated by the gravity-defying nature of his hair, mildly displeased by the constricting, combat-unfriendly nature of the UA uniform, mildly pleased by the net of influence that the name Tempest had gathered. Mildly displeased by the Shie Hassaikai, mildly pleased with the idea of adding another charge to their current list of nineteen.

Mildly pleased by his exploits with the  _ Kapitän _ , and the opportunity to beat people bloody. Mildly pleased with the state-of-the-art training facilities open for their use while the  _ Kapitän _ was working. Mildly displeased with the treatment that Eri  _ (the girl’s name, Kurono had sobbed, Eri, Eri, Eren- Eren in a basement with his blood being farmed, Eren-) _ was going through while they waited and plotted.

Mildly,  _ mildly,  _ **_mildly._ **

It rankled Deku, occasionally, how muted the Soldier’s emotions were. But there wasn’t anything he could do unless he wanted to widen the chasm between them even further, and even Deku wasn’t  _ that _ dumb.

* * *

Exams were a cinch. Deku had been paired with Bakugou, in some misguided attempt to get them to work together. Deku didn’t really care about the explosive blond, really. He had no memories of whatever it was that made the blond go crazy at the sight of him and, frankly, he didn’t really care. He had bigger fish to fry than some dumb teenager with uncontrollable anger issues and a complex.

So when Bakugou had yelled angrily that he was gonna beat up All Might, and that they weren’t going to do any “ _ stupid Deku plans!”  _ Deku had shrugged. As soon as All Might appeared, Bakugou was on him like a dog chasing its own tail and Deku was using the ODM gear to hightail his way over the city. All Might didn’t even notice, too preoccupied with the screaming fireball of indignation hanging off of him.  _ Looks like Explodokill is good for something after all. _

Deku cleared the gate in about two minutes, and they’d passed before Bakugou could get beaten up too bad. The blond was _livid,_ hissing and spitting like the little kitty cat he was, threatening fire, retribution, destruction, et cetera. Deku is, unfortunately for Bakugou, unimpressed.

* * *

Shouta’s decided that the I-Island Expo would be a good learning experience for Midoriya. Connections to support companies, both over and under the table, are extremely useful, not to mention having a little geographic experience and familiarizing himself with the structure of the Island. 

They smuggle themselves through the border onto the Island, just for kicks. Midoriya, apparently, has never done that sort of thing before, and was mystified by the concept of having to cross an  _ ocean. _ Apparently they didn’t have those in his dimension, or whatever. The kid spends the whole speedboat ride hanging over the side with his hand in the water while Shouta pilots. 

He’ll admit, it pulls at his heartstrings a little to see the usually stoic and/or snarky problem child so carefree. Maybe he’ll take him out for this sort of thing again, let him off the metaphorical leash a little. He’ll admit, a little of why he put Midoriya in charge of his own income and upkeep was to see what he would do. He wasn’t expecting the scale of Tempest, an apparent informant-slash-courtesan. For him to start a little operation, maybe, or for the kid to run for some small-timers, but he’d gone and built his own network, the clever brat.

They docked the boat with one of Shouta’s contacts, received their false papers, and made their way to the convention center.

Easy peasy.

He waves the kid off to go enjoy getting himself into trouble, trusting him not to cause an international incident or get arrested, and meanders back into the shadows to make some… exchanges. The Expo is an excellent place to smuggle illicit support gear and weaponry, and he’d like Midoriya to be a little better equipped than just with blades and hand-to-hand combat.

He thinks he’ll start with sniper rifles. You can never go wrong with those when it comes to assassinations. Midoriya would appreciate jacketed hollow-point ballistic rounds, he knew, if only just for their destructive potential. Midoriya is a destruction  _ magnet. _

* * *

Deku huffs in annoyance. He’s been snagged by Shinsou,  _ somehow, _ and dragged into following 1-A around. The Soldier hums contentedly in the back of his head, pleased to interact with his alternate handler and garner more information about I-Island’s defense system. There’s some sort of robot-killing contest going on, and Bakugou and Todoroki have their turns and do very well, for being idiotic teenagers.

Shinsou pushes and goads for Deku to give it a go, so he sighs in exasperation and hops down into the pit, completing the activity at a normal training pace, getting a score a little below Bakugou’s. The blond screeches in triumph at his apparent victory, even when Deku looks at him with a raised eyebrow and stares pointedly at the thick patches of sweat soaking Bakugou’s shirt and his heaving breaths, and Deku’s own relaxed stance.  _ (This prompts another wave of outrage, and Deku smirks at Shinsou, saying ‘see what I’ve provided for your personal amusement?’) _

There’s some sort of party tonight, and a lot of 1-A’s I-Island attendees will be going. Shinsou and, surprisingly, Todoroki, both ask if he’ll be coming, although Shinosou’s question is more of a plea. Deku sighs, but he knows that the  _ Kapitän _ won’t care, so he shrugs and says that he hasn’t got a suit.

Todoroki gets a contemplative look in his eye and mentions that Yaoyorozu, if given his measurements, would probably help if sufficiently bargained with.

Deku turns to Yaoyorozu and immediately offers her one high-profile assassination, free of charge, if she makes him a snazzy suit for the evening. She’s flustered before realizing that he’s completely serious, and she’s smart, he knows it, she’s seen the echo of his skill in the unrefined spars he participates in during class, so she nods, and a deal is sealed.

* * *

Deku adjusts the fitted black waistcoat with an uncharacteristic flourish, and artfully loosens the verdant green silk tie, tucking his usual knife assortment into the folds of his outfit. He fiddles with the black silk gloves that he Manifested adapted to his missing finger, the cuffs only coming to his wrists, and then tightening with dainty silver buckles. His black leather combat boots sort of disrupt the look, but he wasn’t about to leave his best gear behind.

He leaves the top button of his cream button-up undone, carefully pulling it back to expose just enough of the hollow of his throat that it’s scandalous. He does up his face in the least slutty way he can. This is a  _ high-end  _ deal, and even if he might have absconded with some rich bitch, his classmates were going to be there. But that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to look fantastic.

The slum life doesn’t exactly lend him many opportunities to look sharp, so he’s taking this opportunity. A neat twist to his bun, a black leather eyepatch, and he’s done.

He meets the others in the entrance hall, along with Melissa Shields, some technician the girls picked up. They all stare at him open-mouthed, and Deku raises his eyebrow. “What? Thought I just constantly ran around in tactical gear twenty-four seven?” 

A couple of them swallow heavily, and Deku absentmindedly notes their reactions before angling his shoulders to face the doors. “Are we ready to go in?” he asks. “Or is there anyone else?”

They shook their heads, and Shinsou drifted to his side as the 1-A  _ (delegation, really, the representatives of a new era) _ entered, Deku a silent presence at their sides and Shield  _ (wait, no, she asked to be called Melissa)  _ hovering around the edge of the miasma, uncertain.

No one looked up, no conversation stopped, but one day it would, Deku knew, one day the world would take a knee and the now-children heroes he guarded would stand as rulers of old.

Of course, Deku would always be here for them, the shadow over their shoulders. He’s not sure where this loyalty comes from, but if it can’t be Eren he’s standing by then he’ll walk with the  _ Kapitän _ ’s chosen.

Little snot-nosed shits, most of the time, but occasionally their youth will smack him in the face, memories of the 104th before the Scouts went to ground springing unbidden at the sound of Uraraka’s laugh or Kirishima’s sunshine demeanor. 

The party’s alright, Deku supposes. Similar to Historia’s coronation, except there’s no coronation, but the political dances that he can see are all the same. He tries to steer the 1-A puppies away from anything that smacks of illegality or conversations that might be construed as ‘villainous’. Wouldn’t want to cause any…  _ incidents,  _ with his eager heroes-in-training. 

Then, of course, the event is crashed by thugs with big guns, taking civilian hostages in an apparent crusade to steal from the labs. The Island’s own security system has been turned on itself, and, lo and behold, their only chance of getting out of this is to storm the tower themselves, and bring along the Shield technician  _ (Melissa, oops) _ who can disable the system.

Deku looks mournfully down at his gorgeous suit, and thinks to himself  _ this is why we can’t have nice things. _

* * *

Hitoshi had not planned on being dragged into a hostage situation today, but no one ever plans these sorts of things anyway.  _ (He shoves the impending panic attack to the back of his mind. He is a hero-in-training and this is what he’s training for, he will  _ **_not_ ** _ be a liability now, Hitoshi,  _ **_pull yourself together._ ** _ )  _

He glances at Midoriya, who’s absently  _ (wait, what?)  _ spinning a knife over his knuckles. He looks at the green-haired boy incredulously, who shrugs, and the knife slips from his fingers and clatters to the floor. Midoriya grumbles, and picks it back up, muttering about “damn cripple mitts”.

Hitoshi elbows him. “Would your alter ego be better prepared to do this?” he asked quietly, and Midoriya looked contemplative for a moment before nodding.

“This isn’t an active infiltration so much as it is a siege, and with a clear objective and parameters, the Soldier would probably enjoy the exercise,” Midoriya replies, with a wink. “Not much thinking required to kick ass. Make the call,  _ Lila. _ ”

“Lila?” Hitoshi says incredulously, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “I know you’ve been cycling through nicknames lately, but I think you can do better than that.”

“Means ‘purple’ in my homeworld’s language,” Midoriya says with a grin. “I’m trying it out. We’ll see.”

Hitoshi rolled his eyes. “Ready?”

“As you wish,  _ Lila. _ ”

“ **Soldier,** ” Hitoshi says firmly, and watches Deku’s posture straighten and his eye sharpen. The others around them don’t catch it, still swept up in trying to figure out what to do, but Todoroki notices, he’s sure. It’s difficult if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but Todoroki, he knows, has experience reading people and he definitely recognized a personality shift when he saw one.

The Soldier stares at Hitoshi with blank eyes. Hitoshi clears his throat. “Soldier, mission objective; escort group to the security center for the tower, priority civilian Melissa Shield. Defend group from aggressors blocking path, priority Melissa Shield. Use the Other’s discretion regarding lethal measures and property damage. Confirmed?”

“Mission objectives confirmed,” the Soldier replied, sliding a vicious-looking combat knife out of his boot. 

Hitoshi smiled, a slow, vicious thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ye okay so the next chapter will finish I-Island and yes!! shouta is opening up a little to Deku. just a little. buying him exotic ammunition because he thinks midoriya will like it is opening up, right?
> 
> right??


End file.
